


listen: there's a hell of a good universe next door; let's go.

by explosivesky



Category: RWBY
Genre: F/F, fic add-ons, fic prompts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-10-11 12:39:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 21,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17447180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/explosivesky/pseuds/explosivesky
Summary: Sometimes they grow up together; sometimes they don't. Yang takes the dare, knocks into a girl at a club and finds the rest of her life; Blake stumbles onto the back of her motorcycle, misses death by minutes. They're inevitable and they like to prove it.a collection of one-shots from my tumblr.





	1. Purple + 'I'm so much older than I can take'

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: Purple + 'I'm so much older than I can take'. canon compliant.

Blake can ignore the looks pretty easily. She’s used to them - meant-to-be subtle glances that turn to long stares, mouths furrowing - but it’s the whispers that start to gnaw at her, voices echoing in her head she doesn’t want to hear and hears anyway. Sometimes having heightened senses is a curse, but she thinks of Yang’s bike roaring over the waterfall, and sometimes it’s a blessing, too. She’s not sure where she stands in the end. But Atlas is certainly sure of where she stands with it.

She’s so absorbed with her own emotional conflict that it startles her slightly when Yang casually links their fingers together in the middle of the marketplace, keeping her grip tight enough to hold on, but loose enough if Blake decides she wants to pull away. She looks up and over, finds herself even more surprised at the expression on Yang’s face - it isn’t unconcerned at all, isn’t aloof; it’s defiant, hard. Anger sits in the pits of her eyes, reckoning. She’s meeting the stares of every person daring to look at Blake with anything even remotely similar to disgust, holding their gazes until they flush and turn away. Of course she’d noticed. She notices everything about Blake.

Blake tugs on her fingers. “Hey,” she whispers. “You - you don’t have to do that, you know.” 

Yang glances at her, face softening despite its angles, edges. “Yeah, I do,” she says quietly back. “And if I don’t hold your hand I’m gonna punch someone, so don’t let go.” 

A smile blossoms, curls around Blake’s mouth. “I won’t,” she promises. “But it’s just - I don’t know. I’m used to it. I don’t want you to feel like you’re obligated to fight the entirety of Atlas and their racism for me.” 

“Well, you shouldn’t be,” Yang says hotly. “I mean - I know it’s - you’ve fought your entire life for this, and realistically, yeah, me staring people down isn’t going to change anything, but I - I want them to know. That they’re wrong. They’re wrong about you.” 

Blake pulls her to a halt in the street, lets the crowd part and pass around them, and for once, doesn’t notice the amount of space she’s being given. Yang’s eyes settle into hers and there’s no one else left. She’s so gentle despite her threats, despite her penchants. Blake says, “ _You_ know that. That’s what matters to me.” She strokes her thumb over the back of Yang’s hand. “But if it makes you feel better, I’m not going to stop you. Seeing how uncomfortable they get _is_ pretty amusing,” she allows as an afterthought. 

Yang grins, lifts her arm, catches Blake’s chin between her index and thumb. “You know what would _really_ make them uncomfortable?” she murmurs conspiratorially, as if Blake doesn’t know exactly where she’s headed. “If I kissed you.”

“It would,” Blake agrees, smile growing further; some things do still bloom in the cold. 

Yang brings her mouth down to Blake’s, brushes their lips together tenderly; she’s sure people are staring, whispering, pointing, but she doesn’t hear them anymore. All sound dulls to a hum; even the air speaks suddenly to summer.

“You have someone who loves you,” Yang says when they part, her heartbeat drumming against Blake’s palm. “And that’s more than most of them can say.” 


	2. Color: Black, Song: My Best Friend - Hollywood Anderson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Color: Black, Song: My Best Friend - Hollywood Anderson. childhood/high school au.

So, Yang’s twelve or something when she realizes she’s in love with Blake. She says _or something_ because twelve sounds so _young,_ but it’s the truth of what she feels and she won’t challenge it. Blake’s been her best friend for years, and now her heart is beating in places it shouldn’t be - the inside of her wrist, her stomach, her mouth. 

She doesn’t tell anyone - she knows what they’ll all say, can picture Weiss’s voice in her head, _you’re twelve, Yang, you’re so dramatic,_ and Ruby’s, _ew,_ _that’s so gross,_ and she decides she’ll just live quietly with the knowledge and prove them wrong in advance. 

And Blake, well - Blake - it’s hard to tell if she thinks about it at all, if she notices how close they are or if it’s something she takes entirely for granted, too natural to dissect, too right to push away. She seems absorbed by Yang, her life a landscape with her hands around Yang’s waist and her laugh lost against Yang’s hair. She only moves closer, and closer, and closer. 

Eventually Yang just defaults to the assumption that Blake’s in love with her, too, though she never says it aloud - it’s in everything else. Rumors swirl by the time they’re fourteen. Are they, aren’t they; teenagers can’t get enough of gossip. Blake hides in her dark, enigmatic way, leading nobody to answers; Yang only floats on, wraps her up under the summer and presses a kiss to her temple. 

They’re sixteen. A boy asks Blake on a date and she raises an eyebrow, perplexed; she’s always made her disinterest clear. Boys, Yang’s always said; oh, they just don’t get it. 

Think of the devil. Yang steps up beside her and says, “Don’t mean to interrupt, but Blake, I realized there’s something I should probably tell you.” 

The boy stares at her, stares between them both, shifts uncomfortably. Blake ignores him - he’s taking up her time, after all, and she’ll use it however she likes - and asks, “What?” 

“I’m in love with you,” Yang says promptly, smile like a mirror to the sun. “I’ve been in love with you since we were like, twelve or something.” 

“Oh,” Blake says, turns back to the boy, now looking shell-shocked. “In that case, I can’t go out with you. I have a girlfriend.” 

Yang threads the fingers together, pulls her around the back of the building, away from the scene they’ve undoubtedly caused. “I love you too,” Blake says, and Yang presses a palm to her cheek and laughs against her mouth. 


	3. purple + "you make me feel like a dangerous woman"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: purple + "you make me feel like a dangerous woman". assassin au.

An assassin isn’t exactly the career path she’d thought she’d end up following, but life’s had a funny way of working out exactly the way she’d always needed it to.

There are a lot of powerful people in the world, these days, and they’re all at war with each other - someone with the ability to take them out is always for hire, always viable. And she’s _good_ at it. That’s the important thing. 

Weiss calls her in for a meeting; Blake wouldn’t say no even if she’d wanted to. Weiss only does this for extremely high-profile clients, or people she knows will be difficult to kill; that, or she’s planning on chewing Blake out for her lack of social life. Blake’s a go-to for both. 

But something’s _different,_ this time; she’s markedly less serious than usual, her mouth fighting a smirk. “Blake,” she says, “this is a personal request.” 

“ _You_ want someone dead?” Blake asks in surprise. 

“In a manner of speaking,” Weiss says shortly. “Her name’s Yang Xiao Long. She’s Raven Branwen’s daughter. Find her.” 

So Blake does exactly what she’s told. Raven Branwen’s daughter - the payout on _that_ hit is likely to be huge, not that she really needs the money anymore. It’s more like a point of pride, a resume. 

Only Raven Branwen’s daughter is _not at all_ what she expects, because she certainly doesn’t expect to find herself pinned to the wall with her own sword held to her throat, red eyes gleaming at her from the darkness. 

“Who sent you?” Yang whispers against her mouth, her fingers wrapped around Blake’s wrist, and her gaze trails openly up and down Blake’s body. Her coat’s shredded on the floor, leaving her arms bare, her stomach showing. “You’re… _definitely_ the most beautiful assassin that’s ever been sent to kill me.” 

Oh, that roaming stare, the muscles flexing threateningly in her arms, her lips curled deliciously - Blake swallows. Her job usually consists of murdering men - power-hungry, dirty, corrupt _men_ \- never women her age with eyes the color of blood before it spills and a body so toned she may as well have been wired by wrought iron. She’s good at her job, but this is nowhere _near_ her area of expertise.

“You’re the most beautiful target I’ve ever been sent to kill,” Blake says breathlessly.

Yang laughs, her grip loosening; she lowers Blake’s weapon, abruptly taking a step away from her. She tosses it back, and Blake catches it, now far beyond disconcerted, dumbfounded. “Well, since we’re so aligned,” Yang says, “seems like a shame to kill you.” 

“You’re letting me go?” Blake asks, finding herself more disappointed with the prospect than she should be. 

“Not exactly,” Yang says, smirk sinister and beckoning. “I’m not going to kill you, but there are plenty of _other_ things I could do to you.” 

“Oh,” Blake says, and Weiss’s face comes to mind, fingers linked under her chin and a tone too forced for indifference. It hits her suddenly. “ _Oh,”_ she says again, annoyance apparent. 

Yang raises an eyebrow. “Something wrong with my offer?” 

“No,” Blake says, and lowers her sword entirely, her posture relaxing. “Weiss Schnee sent me.” 

Yang reacts similarly to how Blake thinks she will; the recognition is there, confusion underneath. “Weiss sent you?” she repeats.

“To get laid,” Blake clarifies bluntly, and Yang blinks once, laughs again. When she meets Blake’s eyes, hers have faded into a lilac too soft to be a weapon, or even to carry the threat of one. 

“She would,” Yang says fondly, rolling her eyes. They’re entirely different people; maybe they’re just real. “She must like you.” 

“She must,” Blake agrees, “considering you’re _exactly_ my type.” 

“She must like me, too, then,” Yang says quietly, steps closer again. “Considering you’re _exactly_ mine.” 

Blake lets her sword clatter to the ground, lets the sheath follow. Her hand finds the fabric of Yang’s shirt instead, tugs her lightly in, something playful, something dangerous. “Well,” she says with a smile, “I’m not going to get paid for this, so I’ll take whatever’s coming next.” 

“You,” Yang says wickedly, captures Blake’s bottom lip, sucks it into her mouth. “That’ll be you.” 


	4. Purple + "When you move, I'm put to mind of all that I wanna be..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: Purple + "When you move, I'm put to mind of all that I wanna be. When you move, I could never define all that you are to me." verse: i've got a bullet with your mouth on it

“Hey,” Blake starts during closing of a slow Tuesday night, turning and leaning with her palms against the bar, fingers curved around it. “I was wondering.” 

“Yeah?” Yang says, hanging wine glasses. 

“Why’d you play along, anyway?” Blake asks, working her lip thoughtfully between her teeth. “Like, you _knew_ I was attracted to you–”

“Anyone with eyes knew that–”

“–but you just…let it go. For months.” Blake ignores the jab in the middle. They’re long past those reconciliations. “Why? I always kind of wondered. Why you never pushed harder.” 

Yang finishes the last glass, takes deliberate, sauntering steps towards her, slips her hands around Blake’s and rests them on the countertop. She leans in close, too close, their bodies reserving space and Blake’s breath skittering back into her lungs. Yang’s smirk unfurls, reminds her of smoke. 

“Should I have done something like this?” Yang murmurs, lets her eyes flash red. Sex and seriousness sometimes intertwine. It’s who they are. “Cornered you, broke you down? Kissed you into confessing?” 

They lips barely brush; Yang’s tongue darts out, nicks her bottom lip. Blake inhales shudderingly. “Well, with a demonstration like this,” she says, “yes. Absolutely. Yes.” 

Yang laughs, lightly disrupts the mood settling over them. They’re able to cut back and forth like toggling a switch, like revving an engine. Yang kisses her and it’s familiar, warm. “Oh, I would’ve sent you running,” Yang reveals harmlessly, rolling her eyes as she pulls away. “I needed you to come to me. I needed you to _give_ me that power - I wasn’t gonna take it from you.” 

Blake blinks at the slant in direction, the details of the revelation itself. Yang’s always been attuned to her, her past, how it affects her present; it shouldn’t surprise her, but somehow it still does. It does. “Oh,” she says, and reaches for Yang, hands finding her jaw, her neck. She drags her in, kisses her again. “Thank you,” she says after, because it’s the only way to appropriately define the importance of her answer. 

“You don’t have to thank me,” Yang says kindly, tucks a strand of hair, loose from her ponytail, back behind her ear. “I would’ve waited as long as you needed me to. I wasn’t gonna let you go. Not after…not after that night.” She blushes slightly, and Blake latches on; their dynamic is comfortably set, but she'll never say no to role-reversals.

“Aw,” she coos teasingly, squeezing Yang’s cheeks in her hand. “It’s cute that you get, like, _so_ embarrassed when we get all sentimental, but have no problems telling me to shut the fuck up and get on my knees.”

Yang smacks her hand away, flushing harder. “Shut _up,”_ she says, clearly flustered. “I can be _sentimental.”_

“I love you,” Blake tells her softly, watches the way her cheeks burn and her smile lights. Her eyes keep to lavender like a rainy day, flourishing and vibrant. “I love you more than anything.” 

“I love you, too. More than anything,” Yang whispers, buries her face in the crook of Blake’s neck. “Now shut the fuck up and get on your knees.” 

Blake laughs into her hair. “Maybe when we get home.” 


	5. dark red + "I see you walking home alone, Your face is alive and bright..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt by yabashiri: dark red + "I see you walking home alone, Your face is alive and bright. But you can't see how weak you are, 'Cause I could end it tonight". angels and demons au.

To be honest, Blake’s fucking tired of council meetings. Especially when they all revolve around _her_ without really allowing her to speak. 

She’s still too young, the elders have said, her parents included; she won’t be taking over for years to come, but it’s a requirement that she attend anyway, just to learn to the ropes. And she’s so _bored._ She’s not supposed to travel beyond her borders, she’s not allowed to enter the mortal realm - she’s so contained, constricted. For royalty, she thinks, she sure doesn’t get treated like it. 

So she runs. She can’t think of a reason not to. 

But she doesn’t run far. 

She stops on The Bridge, the delicate world between humans and angels, a place lower demons - like the ones she knows will be sent to search for her - can’t enter. It’s a vision of the paradise humans like to believe exists; lush forests, healing springs, no pain, no misery, no reluctance. She manages to sneak by the angels rejuvenating themselves at the waterfall, traipses through the woods and into a clearing, flowers spilling over the grass and the sun eternally shining down. 

It’d be the perfect place to take a break, relax, get away from it all, except that it isn’t empty.

There’s a girl sitting in the center of it, her back to Blake, blonde hair cascading down her back and over her shoulders, as wild as the woods they’re in. She doesn’t seem to feel Blake’s presence, because all she does is stay exactly as she is, the ground blooming around her. 

The thing about angels is that they have no idea how _breakable_ they are, that’s the first thing Blake thinks. How easy it’d be for her to walk up behind the woman, press her nails into her throat, tear it out and send her back to repair, rebirth. Nothing dies here. Nothing exciting ever happens. 

She doesn’t realize how close she’s moved, subconsciously on the edge of doing exactly what she’d daydreamed about, until she’s interrupted. “I have to say,” a voice wrapped in amusement rings out, “I didn’t expect to meet you here, Your Highness.”

Blake freezes steady, caught off-guard, and even more startled to be recognized by sense alone. The girl turns, smirk on her face rather than a smile, and, _shit,_ Blake’s _possibly_ made some mistakes. “Um,” Blake says brilliantly, because she’s definitely not supposed to be talking to one of the Maidens. “I can be wherever I want,” is what slips out of her mouth next, defiant and unobstructed. 

The girl’s mouth curls further. “I’m sure,” she says, slowly getting to her feet; strangely she’s sheathed in a gold dress instead of white, and it occurs to Blake how out of place she looks, wearing leather pants, thigh-high boots, and and a black crop top with criss-crossing straps. “There’s nobody looking for you, then? I have a hard time believing the Princess of Hell can wander off without sending half the kingdom into panic.” 

“How do you know who I am?” Blake asks bluntly. “And no. Nobody important is looking for me, because sending the kingdom into a panic is _exactly_ what they don’t want to do.” 

“So they know you’ve left of your own free will?” the girl says. “I don’t want to be listed as an accomplice, you know. I have quite an important position here. Full benefits. Salaried.” 

Blake laughs unexpectedly at the response and is immediately startled to hear herself do so. She observes the woman closer, more carefully. They’ve met before; they must have. All royalty are introduced, and gained royalty is even greater. The flowers, the gold of her dress, her hair…there’s something devastatingly familiar about her. “You’re Spring,” Blake says suddenly, the recognition coming to her. Oh, shit, this is _definitely_ bad.

“I also have a name,” she says dryly, seemingly uncaring of all the punishments that could befall the two of them if they’re caught coercing. “It’s Yang, if you feel like using it.” 

“Yang,” Blake repeats, finds her tone softer than she intends. “I should’ve known you were no ordinary angel.” 

“And why’s that?” 

Blake rolls her eyes, gestures plainly. “Angels aren’t nearly as beautiful as you,” she lets slip, and shuts her mouth abruptly. Yang’s eyes seem to brighten with the lavender growing around them. She changes the subject. “What are you doing here, anyway?” 

“Thinking,” Yang says, allows the shift between them. “You aren’t the only one who gets…tired, I guess, of responsibility.” 

“Are Maidens even allowed to admit that?” 

Yang blinks at the response, laughs once, delicately. “Probably not,” she says charmingly. “But I’m trusting you won’t turn me in.”

“Now you’re an accomplice,” Blake says, smiling slightly. “We’re both breaking the law.” 

Yang merely shrugs, steps closer to her. Strangely, it doesn’t ignite the urge to run. “Oh, to hell with the law,” she says, and Blake’s eyebrows raise high, her stare dropping to Yang’s mouth. “I broke it the second I acknowledged your presence and didn’t immediately alert the High Guard.” 

“Why didn’t you?” Blake asks, her wariness fading and falling.

Yang stops directly in front of her, lets her eyes paint across Blake’s face, her mouth, the line of her jaw, the curve of her collarbone, the way the wind teases her hair. “I see a lot of beautiful things,” she murmurs, and raises a hand, intimately brushing her thumb across Blake’s bottom lip, “but nothing that quite rivals you.” 

“Run with me,” Blake whispers, enthralled. She doesn’t know why she says it, what strikes the urge within her, only that there’s something about Yang’s soul clutching her close, like a second of contact is all that’s ever been needed for love. “I’m tired of this. Of all of it.”

“Me?” Yang says, but she’s less thrown by the request than Blake expects her to be. “Why me?” 

“Don’t you feel it?” Blake breathes out, her hands winding around Yang’s waist. Oh, they could be tried on sight for this. “We met for a reason.” 

“You’d risk all of Hell for me?” Yang says, but her hands have settled on Blake’s shoulders. “After one conversation?” 

“We met before,” Blake says, the recollection instantaneous. She could never forget this girl, not sure how she’d convinced herself she did. “That’s how you knew it was me. We met on the Border, years ago. You just - you just _stared,_ like you couldn’t help yourself. I didn’t want you to. I _knew_.” 

Yang’s eyes only dart between hers, and she tugs her bottom lip into her mouth. “It’s a mistake,” she says quietly, her eyelashes fluttering. “There’s - it never should’ve been you and me. I feel it, too. But someone made a mistake. We can be stripped for this.” 

“I don’t care,” Blake says. The sun burns overhead, and despite their rules and regulations, not a single decision she’s made that day feels like a fault. “They don’t make mistakes up there, and I’m not going to be the first one to accuse them of it.” She tilts her head, dips forward, lets their mouths meet in the middle; the sun still glimmers overhead, the flowers still bloom. Nothing’s happened that shouldn’t have if the universe has a say in it. “Run away with me.” 

“Okay,” Yang says, her smile free and unyielding, and Blake kisses her again. Let their kingdoms collapse, let their titles fade and disintegrate. Some things are worth more. “I think I know of a place.”


	6. white + “here come in close, wear me like a winter jacket”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt by ririkakirari: white + “here come in close, wear me like a winter jacket”. canon compliant.

Surprisingly, there’s a lot left to learn about each other; specifically the way the cold has teeth in Blake and latches like a hungry, gaping void, leaves her miserable and irritated and impatient. Her mouth slips into a pout and her eyebrows furrow, ears pressed flat against her head. Yang tries not to laugh at the expression and doesn’t succeed. It’s too adorable, she keeps murmuring privately. I want to kiss it off your face.

“Shut up,” Blake grumbles, buries herself even deeper in her coat. The storm billows around them, pushing and pulling playfully at her hair. They’re on the outskirts of the city, searching for an inn with any available room. “I fucking _hate_ snow. I fucking _hate_ the cold. I fucking hate Atlas!” 

“So do I!” Weiss calls from ahead of them, her arms held tight around her body. “You aren’t _special!_ Get over it!” 

Yang laughs louder at that, warm enough despite the freezing weather; Blake only continues mumbling to herself, chin hidden in the fleece collar of her jacket. “You know,” Yang starts casually, “I can probably fix that for you.” 

Blake only harrumphs. “ _Brag_ some more, why don’t you,” she snipes. “Not all of us have a semblance that raises our core body temperatures to alarming degrees.” 

“True, true,” Yang agrees, takes a small step in, their shoulders brushing as they trek on, “but _you’re_ the only one who gets to reap the rewards of it.” She says it quietly, knows Blake will hear over the whistling of the snow. 

One of her ears twitches; she spares a side-eye. “Well, I’m waiting,” she says, apparently pressed far enough against her limits that she’ll risk their secrecy, and Yang slips an arm around her shoulders, drags her in close. Nobody glances back at them, to absorbed with their destination, wherever it may be; they don’t have the energy to yell at Blake and Yang lagging behind. 

It works for a time; Blake doesn’t shiver as fiercely, keeps her complaining to a minimum. Yang removes her arm the moment they step through the door of the inn, fingers trailing to Blake’s instead before dropping away entirely. Qrow’s bargaining with the innkeeper, haggling prices and quantity.

“Well,” he says, “some of us are gonna have to share.”

“Whatever,” Blake says flatly. “Please. Just let us into a room before wefreezeto death.” 

He frowns at her, but most of them seem to agree; he hands out keys, and the innkeeper gives them straightforward instructions. Blake and Yang are up the stairs to the right; Ruby and Weiss to the left, Jaune and Oscar farther down the hall with Nora and Ren. It’s not really up for debate.

The minute their door is closed, Blake spins around and nestles herself into Yang’s arms again, teeth chattering. Yang pulls her closer, threads her fingers through Blake’s hair at the back of her head, her other hand rubbing up and down her back. “I’m going to die,” she groans into Yang’s neck, cheek pressed against her shoulder. 

“No, you aren’t,” Yang says softly; Blake’s ear crooks at the tone. “Not after everything we’ve been through.” 

Blake lifts her head, breath caught in her throat; maybe it’s frozen there, turned to ice like everything else around them. She would, too, she thinks, if Yang weren’t there to hold it at bay. She says, voice stumbling slightly, “Then you’d better keep me warm.” 

Yang smiles, presses a kiss cutely to the tip of her nose. “You can use me for that any time,” she says, and then: “There are probably faster ways to do it, you know.” It’s stated too lightly for all the intent and implication behind it. 

“Oh, _are_ there,” she says, and now she’s picking up pieces. She’s turned coy, flirtatious. They’re never allowed enough time alone. “Such as?” 

Yang’s fingers dip around her skull, trace the curve of her ear, draw over her jawline. Her stare holds the same weight as a blanket, the same heat of any ember. She’s right. There are definitely faster ways to do it. 

“Can I kiss you?” she asks quietly, fingertips stalling before Blake’s mouth. “I don’t - I don’t just want to assume.” 

“You can assume,” Blake tells her, breathless in her expectancy. “You can kiss me. Whenever you’d like.” 

Yang doesn’t wait for any further clarification, just lightly brushes their lips together with her hand cupping Blake’s cheek; that alone rivals the relief of fire. Blake doesn’t let her stop, kisses her again, grip latching around the front of Yang’s coat and holding her there. Her shivering slows and halts; the snow melts entirely. Atlas may as well drop off into the ocean, or create itself a new one. 

“Hm,” Yang mumbles in between kisses. “Maybe _not_ whenever I want.” 

“No?” 

She shakes her head, but her mouth is set in a grin. “I think I’d blow our cover in seconds,” she says, laughing at herself with a blush spreading against her cheeks, and what’s a storm with her, Blake thinks, what’s any storm but conquerable.


	7. peach + "the way you held me so tight all through the night 'til it was near morning"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt by mollymuak: peach + "the way you held me so tight all through the night 'til it was near morning". canon compliant.

Yang half-expects herself to be alone when she wakes up the morning after they finally defeat Adam, as if even death can’t convince a haunting to find another home.

Except, well, morning isn’t even close - it’s apparently the early evening, based on the murmuring she hears from Maria about the position of the moon, the stars - and _alone_ is ever further away from reality. 

They’re still on the airship, that’s the first thing she realizes; she can feel the engines thrumming underneath them, can hear the way wind clips its wings. The second thing she realizes is that someone’s holding her tightly in their arms, and that they must’ve been doing so since she passed out from exhaustion shortly after taking off. 

She doesn’t need to open her eyes to know it’s Blake; she can feel the material of her top underneath her cheek, the warmth of her bare skin, the way her arms enfold Yang like the fog over the ocean below. Blake sighs to herself, presses her lips delicately against the top of Yang’s head, and Yang feels her heart stutter and skip in response. Blake pauses, tilts her chin; oh of course, Yang slowly comprehends. She _heard_ that.

“Yang?” Blake whispers softly, lifting a hand and stroking the hair away from her face. “Are you awake?” 

“Yeah,” Yang murmurs back, blinking her eyes open; the world looks dizzying and disorienting, her vision somewhat blurry. It’s hard to focus. She turns her head, meets Blake’s eyes; so, it’s hard to focus on anything that isn’t Blake. “How long was I out?” 

“Only a couple hours,” Blake says, slowly unwinding her arms as Yang tries to shift herself into more of a sitting position. They’re on a bench near the cargo hold with a blanket underneath them, and Blake’s leaning against the wall for support. She’s still got Yang’s coat draped over her shoulders. “It - it’s okay. I had you.” She swallows, and the painful sting of the act seems to be the thing to finally bring tears to her eyes. “You scared me, but I had you.” 

“Blake,” Yang breathes out, recognizing the release of hours, weeks, years’ worth of pent-up emotion; she rests her hands on Blake’s cheeks, thumbs stroking away any drops spilling over. “Oh, Blake, don’t cry - it’s okay. We’re okay.” 

“I know,” she says, but her bottom lip trembles anyway, and Yang does the only thing she can think to do, mirroring the impulse she’d had in front of the waterfall. She catches Blake’s shaking lip between her own, kisses her so softly it eases Blake back into a sense of stability; she can’t break a kiss this gentle. Something about it would be a crime, far worse than anything Atlas could charge them with. 

It only occurs to her after that they’re lucky they’d been alone; everyone else must be up front and planning, or spread out, searching for their own solace on a ship with no hiding places. Yang says, “We’re fine. Okay? You and me. We’re okay.” 

“I know,” Blake repeats, voice still unsteady, her hands cupping the backs of Yang’s against her cheeks. “I just - I can’t believe it’s over. It’s really - _over.”_ She inhales, exhales, meets Yang’s gaze open and honestly. “He’s been so much of my life, and he’s gone. And now.” She pauses, presses her lips together into a line, teeth biting down. “Now, it’s like - I have so much _room,_ you know? I have - I have things I spent all this time pushing away because I was afraid, but now…”

She stops there, holds poignantly. Yang’s eyes dart between hers, searching for a confirmation she already knows exists. “But now?” Yang prompts quietly, giving her the option. 

She takes it with only a minute hesitation, leaning forward and kissing Yang the way a small bird beats its wings; it’s her turn for initiation, and it’s delicate and tender, nothing taken for granted, not even an inch, not even a second. She pulls away, licks her lips, her eyes still shut. 

“But now,” she murmurs, and up front, someone excitedly whispers about a bright star burning its way through the sky. “Now there’s you.” 


	8. deep orange + sunrise lover

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: deep orange + sunrise lover. modern au.

The latch to her window catches against the windowsill before someone heaves it open, and Blake doesn’t have to glance back to know who. “Hey,” she greets, keeps her stare straight ahead at the slowly lightening sky; there’s something about this time of morning that feels serendipitous, too ethereal to miss. Like she’ll blink and miss it.

“Hey,” Yang says, hoisting herself out and onto the roof. “I knew you’d be up.” 

“I didn’t want to wake you,” Blake says apologetically. Yang scoots forward, stretching her legs out on either side of Blake’s body, arms wrapping around her waist and nudging her back. Blake acquiesces, rests with her spine against Yang’s chest, head lolling against her shoulder. “I couldn’t sleep.” 

“Bad dream?” Yang asks quietly, holding her tighter.

“No,” Blake says, fingers lifting to toy with the loose strands of hair curling over Yang’s shoulder. “Good dream. So good I couldn’t believe it was real.” 

Yang grins against her temple. Sunlight filters past the mountain, on the verge of breaking. “What if I told you it _was_ real?” Yang murmurs, her breath now deliberate and warm against Blake’s ear. “What if I told you I could prove it?” 

“I’d say,” Blake starts, because the sunrise is one thing, but Yang making insinuations about her mouth is entirely another, “I’d say you’re distracting me.” 

“Oh, no,” Yang says, lowering her voice an octave. She’s too husky for so early in the morning, throaty and promising. “Is that a problem?” 

Her fingertips are trailing over Blake’s stomach, dipping under her shirt and following the line of bare skin like a treasure map, working a path like passing grooves. Blake breathes out shudderingly, “No.” 

“ _I_ can show you a better sunrise than this,” Yang continues, darkening and devilish, entirely at odds with exactly the thing Blake’s waiting to see. “I can show you a lot of things.” 

“Jesus, Christ,” Blake finally snaps, her spine begging for an arch. “We have sex _once_ and you - you turn into _this?”_

“What’s ‘this’?” Yang laughs, caught off-guard by the outburst, or maybe she’d thought Blake’s willpower was greater. 

Blake sits up, halfway shifts around to face her, expression comically disbelieving. “Oh, like you don’t fucking _know_ ,” she says pointedly. “Suddenly you’re, what - smooth, sexy, and incredibly horny?” 

“I’m hurt,” Yang says, leaning back on her hands with an arrogant smirk. Blake thinks of pushing her back against the roof, of making the sunrise watch _them._ “I was all those things _before,_ thanks. It’s not _my_ fault you were so dense. You didn’t think I was sexy before I went down on you?” 

Her cheeks flush and burn automatically. She’s kind of new at this. They both are, actually, or they should be, but Yang transcends leagues. “That’s - that’s not what I - I mean, _obviously_ I thought you were, but like–”

Yang laughs again, leans in and slants their mouths together, cuts off her impulsive and unending rant. So, Yang’s smooth when she’s turned on, and Blake’s apparently just a wreck. Oh, they’ll be what they are. Yang’s tongue darts out, slips across her bottom lip, her mouth transitioning into a grin rather than a seduction. 

“What?” Blake asks, pulling away, and she’s hit by the image of Yang’s eyelashes fluttering, her smile unfolding, daylight spilling across her as if from a mug, as if a river poured and refused to stop. She’s beautiful. That’s one thing Blake’s always known. 

“Do you wanna take me up on my offer?” Yang asks again.

There’s far too much to look at, all of it so ephemeral. “Your offer?” 

“To show you a better sunrise.” 

“Oh,” Blake says dazedly, fingers spreading across Yang’s knee. “I think you already did.” 


	9. maroon + "your lips, your hips; they're mine."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: maroon + "your lips, your hips; they're mine." verse: you and every dark pretty thing

Some things change and some things stay the same. There’s no lesson here. 

It’s strangely simple to move beyond what they were; dark corners just aren’t as appealing as they used to be. They don’t steal away at parties, don’t lock themselves in rooms - now they share a bed and Blake leaves her skin on display, her scars as a museum. They’re there, she says, but it doesn’t hurt anymore. Not when you touch them. 

Blake’s possessiveness, however, doesn’t seem to have been a product of circumstance; she drags her teeth against Yang’s skin and nips, parts her lips and kisses. Regardless of how she reigns herself in, Yang always seems to be left with marks peppering her neck, her collarbone, the insides of her thighs. 

Yang finally points it out, smirking at her reflection in their bathroom mirror; Blake pokes her head around the shower curtain and shrugs. “It’s hot,” she says, entirely unapologetic. Yang catches a glimpse of her body under the water as she turns away, playful argument receding back into her mouth. “I like looking at you. I like remembering.” 

“You like knowing that I belong to you,” Yang counters, strips her shirt overhead, tugs her underwear down her legs.

Blake’s purposefully evasive tone answers more questions than if she’d avoided them completely. “Your words.” 

Yang shifts the shower curtain to the side, steps in; Blake’s washing shampoo out of her hair, eyes shut tight. She doesn’t flinch against Yang’s touch, as if something she can recognize instantly, even when it’s unexpected. Her lips kink up at a corner. 

Yang curls her fingers against Blake’s jaw, guides her forward for a kiss, presses their bodies together. Blake only sighs quietly against her mouth, hands dropping to her chest. It’s one of those opportunities she’ll never pass up, take for granted; Blake used to run, and now it doesn’t even cross her mind. 

“Look,” Yang murmurs, and Blake’s eyes dart open, the gold of them momentarily so vivid it’s almost disarming. Her stare follows Yang’s neck, small bruises connecting like constellations. They feel good under the heat of water, the pressure. 

Blake chews the inside of her lip, lingering. “You don’t - you don’t _belong_ to me,” she clarifies, presses a thumb down against one; Yang hums in her throat, an automatic response to pleasure. “But you’re mine. Just mine.” 

“It’s okay,” Yang says, smirking haughtily; it’s a look she won’t rid herself of until Blake makes her. Maybe that’s a ploy. “I know I am. And I think everybody else knows, too.” 

They do, and if they don’t, it’s made explicitly clear. They’re at a party and Blake’s wrapped around her all night, curled against her side, laughing into her cup and kissing Yang’s mouth like the chorus of a song she can’t stop repeating. Somehow, there’s a man who misses this. Isn’t there always.

“You’re cute,” he tells Blake over the kitchen counter, and she only blinks at him, lips twisting bemusedly. “You wanna talk? Get to know each other a little bit?”

“No,” she says, too drunk for subtlety and laced in humor. Yang glances over her shoulder, overhearing, but stops herself at the last moment, more curious than questioning. Blake continues, “You see that girl over there?…The blonde one? I’m hers. And she’ll kick your ass,” she adds seriously. Yang keeps her laughter contained, even though it’s kind of true.

“Oh.” The guy’s voice turns in on itself. “You’re Yang Xiao Long’s girlfriend? Damn. Sorry.” 

“Yeah,” Blake says, note of ego apparent; it took them too many nights and graveyards to get here for casual indifference, too many teeth and nails for dismissal. They’re something to be proud of. “I’m her girlfriend.” 

Yang extends an arm to her the second she walks away, and she dips underneath it, smiling into Yang’s shoulder. “It’s funny,” she remarks, watching Weiss try and shotgun a beer out on the balcony. “People who aren’t you thinking I have time for them.”

“Maybe,” Yang says, tilts her head and drops a kiss against her mouth, “I should give you more hickeys. Seems to work for you.”

Blake laughs, flicks her thumb down Yang’s bottom lip. “Baby,” she says serenely, “you can do whatever you want to me.” 

“Anal.”

Blake snorts whiskey up her nose, choking on her drink. She slaps at Yang’s arm, coughing as she does so. “Fuck _you!”_ she exclaims, Yang laughing hysterically into her hair. “I _hate_ it when you do that! Jesus, Christ. If you make that joke _one_ more fucking time, Xiao Long–” 

“What’re you gonna do?” Yang challenges playfully, tugging Blake into her lap. “Find a new girlfriend?” 

Blake’s arms wind around her neck, their foreheads brushing together. Her smile speaks to a sun she’d never seen until Yang, and that’s not something she’s letting go of, ever. “No,” she admits, jokingly cross. “You’re stuck with me. Probably forever, at this point.” 

“Well,” Yang says with a grin, “I can probably live with that.”


	10. "The tip of my tongue is sweet, whenever I say your name..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: "The tip of my tongue is sweet, whenever I say your name, typical conversations, the smallest feelings, I keep talking about them, about you". canon divergent; just kids at beacon.

“Hey,” Yang says suddenly from the other side of the table, interrupting an incredibly enthralling chapter of the book Weiss is reading. “Be honest with me for a second.” 

“As if I lie to you the rest of the time?” Weiss says, snarky in response. Well, fair, that’s one of the things Yang loves about her. 

“You know what I mean,” Yang says, all rolling eyes and sarcasm. She taps her fingers against the tabletop. “Do I talk about Blake too much? Do I talk _to_ her too much? Am I, like, too subtle or just annoying?” 

Weiss sighs heavily to herself, gaze lifting and traversing boredly around the room until she spots her target. “Blake!” she calls, gestures her over with a wave of her hand. Yang snaps her mouth shut, stare darting in horror between the two of them. This is the first step to betrayal. This is war. This is–

“Weiss,” she hisses, “what are you _doing_ –”

–Blake walking up to them, looking entirely too hot in their academy uniform, stockings just below her knee, jacket hanging over the back of the chair she’d just vacated, tie loose around her neck. 

“Hey,” Blake says, and her eyes slip to Yang, smile curving automatically. “Hey, Yang.” 

“Hi, Blake,” Yang says, staring at her with too much breath left stranded in her lungs. There was something before her, Yang thinks, but can’t remember what it was; she was annoyed, maybe, afraid. 

“Yang has a few questions for you,” Weiss says, strained and polite; oh, _yeah,_ that was it - she’s enjoying this, digging Yang her grave. Blake merely raises her eyebrows, shifting her weight between feet. 

“Oh?” she says, but Yang can’t manage to speak at all now that the time has come. It’s so predictable, so fitting. She runs her mouth incessantly until she doesn’t. 

“Yes,” Weiss says smoothly for her. “She was wondering if she talked both about you and to you too much, as well as if she was too subtle or just annoying. I was hoping you could help me answer.” 

Blake seems to process Weiss’s plight slowly, blinking perplexedly at her, but when she glances to Yang for confirmation she receives nothing but a swallow. 

“Um,” Yang says, tongue uncomfortably dry, parched earth long before rain. 

Blake’s smile disguises itself, plays arrogant, becomes a smirk. “I can probably do that,” she says, and slips onto the bench beside Yang. “No; not enough; not _that_ subtle, but not annoying, either. To be honest, I’m better with blunt.” 

Her irises remind Yang theoretically of the sun, all its poetry and replications, something gold that glitters and gleams and warms. Well, all she’s ever needed to know is exactly where she stands. “In that case,” Yang says, “I can tie a cherry stem with my tongue.” 

“Prove it,” Blake says.

“I don’t actually like cherries,” Yang says conversationally, plucking one of from the bowl. “How about you?” 

“Love them,” Blake answers, her voice dropping low. 

Yang brings it to her lips, watches her mouth wrap around the fruit and suck, breaking from the stem. Her middle finger touches Blake’s bottom lip. Somewhere across from them, Weiss snaps her book shut and leaves. 

She takes the stem into her mouth, works on tying it into a knot, Blake’s eyes trained on her the entire time, anticipatory, predatory. She holds it between her teeth, slips it out, twirls it between her fingers. 

“How’s that for blunt?” she asks casually. 

When Blake kisses her, she isn’t really surprised. 


	11. silver + "trust is something I am not accustomed to"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: silver + "trust is something I am not accustomed to". wrong side of the tracks au.

She’s kind of tired of being known as the kid from the wrong side of the tracks. Turns out, Blake’s tired of it, too.

“Belladonna?” Yang repeats her name, frowning in recognition. She’s leaning against the seat of her yellow-orange hued motorcycle, cigarette tip lighting up between her lips. She’s parked alone by the riverbank, on the border of the neighboring gang, and all Blake can think about is how beautiful she is; too beautiful for the dismantling city around them, too beautiful for the streets and signs and subways, too beautiful to not be loved by someone, anyone. “You were - that councilman’s daughter who went rogue, right?” 

“That’s me,” Blake says dryly, hands tucked in the pockets of her leather jacket. Her ribs twinge; every step hurts to move. “Disgrace of the family.” 

Yang’s mouth reverses, unable to stop her grin. “Join the club,” she says, but straightens up abruptly, takes a step closer. Her stare narrows, brow dipping. “You’re bleeding.” 

“Shit.” Blake wipes the back of her hand against her temple. “Yeah. I - I ran.” 

“You _ran?”_ Yang says carefully, lowering her arm, the cigarette still smoking between her fingers. “Ran from…” 

“I left,” Blake says, splintering in her side only getting worse. “I left my gang.” 

Yang’s eyes widen, frame holding still; it’s not an answer she’d expected, and not one heard often, anyway. It’s almost impossible to survive an ordeal like that, and Yang knows plenty of others who’ve died trying. “You left your gang?” she repeats quietly, not under a new light but a certain slant of shadow. “Holy shit. Are they - are they following you?” 

“Probably,” Blake says, bites her lip against the pain she’s in. “So, uh - I’ll see you around. Hopefully.” 

Yang observes her a second longer, something tenacious about her, resolved. She drops her cigarette against the pavement, stamps it out with her boot. “Come on,” she says shortly, glances around them, over both their shoulders. She kicks up the stand of her motorcycle. “Let’s go.” 

“What?” Blake asks, stunned; it’s a death sentence if Yang’s caught helping her escape. “Go where?” 

“Somewhere away,” Yang says, swinging a leg over the seat. “We’re still in White Fang territory, aren’t we? C’mon. We’ve gotta get you somewhere safe.” 

She ambles over as quickly as she can without passing out from the pain. Broken ribs, definitely. God, damn. “Fuck,” she whispers, trying to situate herself behind Yang. “Why are you helping me?” 

“Put your arms around my waist,” she commands gently. “You can lean on me. It’s okay. Just stay conscious.” 

Blake follows direction, does exactly as she’s told; it didn’t used to be a strength of hers, but the way Yang does it makes it sound like a lifeboat rather than a plank. “You didn’t answer my question,” she says as Yang revs the engine. She rests her forehead against the top of Yang’s spine; she smells like smoke and spearmint, a strange combination and yet somehow a comforting one.

“Because it takes a lot of strength to do what you did,” Yang says, matter-of-fact and firm, but she softens over her continuation. “And, well - let’s just say I’m a sucker for second chances.” 


	12. green + "feeling pretty good about the trouble that I'm in"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt by voidkatten: green + "she kisses like a grenade" and/or "feeling pretty good about the trouble that I'm in". remnant modern au.

“There,” Sun says into her ear, pointing towards the bar; club lights flash, rhythm pumps. It’s not that rude under the circumstances. “Her. She shot me down last week.” 

Yang squints, following his arm. “The girl with the cat ears?” 

“Yeah.” Sun shrugs, lifts his cup to his lips. “I thought I had that going for me. Like, you know, having something in common.” 

Yang’s mouth curls amusedly; Sun’s a gem, but sometimes his layers unpeel to simplicity. It’s not always a bad thing, though it definitely hinders him when it comes to picking up women. “Girls don’t really like being narrowed down to a single trait,” she says, patting him on the shoulder. “What’s the bet?” 

“A hundred lien,” he says. 

Yang blinks bemusedly. “For a _dance_?” 

“No,” he says, gleaming wickedly. “Let’s make it _interesting.”_

“You’re on, Wukong,” she says, physically unable to resist a challenge. “How far do you want me to go?” 

“A kiss is fine,” he says, grinning. “Good luck. She’s tough.” 

Yang only winks casually at him, pushing through the crowd of people clogging up the bar. The girl’s lucky enough to be standing around the less-packed corner, talking amicably with another girl whose hair is so white it’d blend straight into a blizzard. There’s not a ton of space, but plenty of opportunities. 

She squeezes past a group of guys passing out shots, tucks herself right beside the girl and waits, holds herself aloof. It’s a busy place, a busy night - everyone’s drunk, clumsy - all she has to do is–

“Shit,” a guy slurs, accidentally bumping into her from behind, which sends _her_ into the girl’s side. “My bad.” 

“Watch it,” Yang snaps at him, and the girl turns to the interruption. Yang puts on the most apologetic expression she can manage, rests a hand gently on the girl’s arm. One of her ears twitches; Yang makes it a point not to look at them. “I’m so sorry, are you okay?” 

The lights flash again, illuminating their true colors, and Yang suddenly realizes the girl Sun’s challenged her to is fucking _gorgeous._

“I’m fine,” she says, half-smile playing about her mouth. “Can’t really avoid being run into at the bar.” 

She’s gorgeous, and not in a passive, pretty way; she’s dangerous, dark, alluring. She’s wearing a crop top with the chest in a pattern of criss-crossing fabric, leather pants, and boots that somehow slip halfway up her thigh. Yang vaguely catalogues her hand, still touching the girl’s arm. She lets autopilot take over, too mesmerized for cool. “You’re telling me,” she says charmingly, leaning in to be heard. “I used to think being tall was an advantage, but apparently I’m just a bigger target.” 

The girl laughs once, her irises glittering under the dim light. She looks like she stole the stars right out of space. She tilts her head, angling for Yang’s ear. “How tall are you?” she asks curiously, intrigued now that it’s been pointed out.

“Five-nine.” Yang pulls back slightly, eyes her up and down, ballparks it. “And you’re - five-seven?” 

Her mouth quirks guiltily. “I’m a fake five-seven,” she admits. “Most of my shoes are boots with…significant heels.” 

“Well,” Yang says with a grin, “you pull it off brilliantly.” 

The girl smiles, and this time it takes over her lips entirely. “I’m Blake,” she says, holding out a hand. Yang reciprocates but doesn’t quite shake, instead curling her fingers around Blake’s palm and holding there for a second before releasing. It’s slightly more intimate, and far easier to pass off as a drunk missed intention.

“Yang,” she says, and her stare drops to the girl behind Blake, now tapping through her scroll. “Is she your girlfriend, or–?” 

Blake pulls a face somewhere between a grimace and a giggle. “Absolutely not,” she says cheerfully, lifting her mouth back to Yang’s ear. The music’s too loud for conversation, but they’re trying anyway; it’s how Yang knows she’s working. “I’m single.” 

Yang raises an eyebrow. She’s forgotten about the money entirely; Blake’s hands are soft, that’s all she’s thinking. Her fingers are long and slender. If shadows knew to take a form and seduce, they’d look like her. “How convenient,” Yang murmurs, brings her lips closer to Blake’s skin than she’d dared before. “So am I.” 

The smirk Blake’s wearing suddenly - Yang recognizes it, recognizes the power of it, the play. There’s a game here; there’s something of a cat-and-mouse. She doesn’t intend the pun, but she’s clear on exactly which part of the chase she represents. 

“So Sun’s just a wingman?” Blake says, her voice low and amused, and Yang pauses with the music, waits to drop with it, too. People shift around them; the bar’s stained wet with condensation. The white-haired girl has disappeared entirely. 

Yang looks up. One of Blake’s ears twitch. 

She’s been trapped. 

She sighs. “He set me up, didn’t he,” she asks shortly, already thinking of ways to kick his ass, but Blake only laughs again, shakes her head.

“No,” she says, oddly charmed by the reaction to the twist of events. “Well, actually, _kind_ of. I think he genuinely forgot I could hear him, but I _did_ tell him last week I wasn’t interested in a relationship. Any relationship.” 

Yang runs a hand through her hair, but she can’t manage to hold the embarrassment much longer; she’s always been carried by flow, smooth enough to roll off of. “Well,” she says, grinning sheepishly, “then I won’t waste any more of your time.” 

Blake quirks her head, staring at her knowingly. “Sorry,” she says, smirk unwinding further. “I didn’t emphasize that correctly. I told _him_ I wasn’t interested.” 

Oh. _Oh._ What a difference an implication makes. Yang mirrors her mouth, bites the inside of her lip. “Just so you know,” she says darkly, “you aren’t the kind of girl I would’ve kissed and walked away from.” 

“So what kind of girl am I?” 

“ _Look_ at you,” Yang breathes out against her ear, fingers uncurling against her jaw. “He _did_ set me up. You couldn’t be more my type if I’d imagined you myself.”

She doesn’t get the opportunity to retreat, doesn’t get the chance for Blake to murmur a reply; she starts the motion and Blake follows her mouth, catches her lips as she pulls away. Blake tastes like whisky and cherries, neither of which Yang enjoys on their own but somehow work perfectly together on Blake’s tongue. 

“You won your bet,” Blake murmurs against her. “How much does he owe you if you take me home?” 

Yang grins, can almost feel Sun’s shell-shocked stare from across the room. Blake kisses her again, fingernails scratching against her scalp as she threads her fingers through Yang’s hair. 

“Nothing,” Yang says when they break. Her heart shoots through her veins, unable to stand still. “There’s no way in hell I could put a price to that.”

“I can,” Blake says coyly. “Take me out to breakfast in the morning.”

Yang laughs, nods in agreement. The bass thumps, beats down its doors, the strobe lights quick enough for a blink; all the people who said clubs weren’t a place to find love were wrong. They just weren’t looking hard enough, or they’d had too many shots, or - _or_ , she realizes, they didn’t have the right friends. 

She’ll let Sun keep the money.


	13. red + "you make me feel invincible."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt by nekkidile: red + "you make me feel invincible." verse: walk where the wild things grow

“Do you think I need a day job?” Yang asks abruptly, pausing in the middle of her artistic quest to cover the stone masonry of the outside walls in moss. It’d look so _cool,_ she’d said to Neptune, who merely rolled his eyes and let her get on with it. Like I’d tell _you_ no, he’d said, allowing her a grin.

Blake’s stretched out in a lawn chair, relaxing in the sun, wearing shorts and a strapless bikini top Yang keeps eyeing when she thinks Blake isn’t watching. Blake doesn’t really have the heart to tell her she can see perfectly through her sunglasses, and besides, it’s a look far too adoring to put an end to, desire lingering just underneath.

“No,” Blake says, smile coiling at a corner. Yang doesn’t get a lot of days to be bored, and she never seems to know what to do with herself during them. “I think you need a hobby.” 

“You’re a hobby.” 

“I’m the love of your life.” 

Yang laughs, quirks her head, glances over her shoulder with the sun rising in her eyes. The moss continues inching up the stone. “Touché.” She turns back to the wall, examining her work. “Really, though.” 

“What would you even _do_?” Blake questions, mostly because she imagines any and all of Yang’s prospects will be endlessly amusing. “You, indoors? I can’t see it.” 

“I could be a florist,” Yang says whimsically, flicks her wrist, and there’s suddenly a sunflower stretching tall beside Blake with its petals unfolding overhead. “I can arrange a _sick_ bouquet.” 

“No,” Blake says lightly, adjusting her back against the chair, shutting her eyes once again. “All your flowers are for me.” 

She smells the roses before she sees them, and then their vibrant red floods her irises; Yang’s too tailored to her, emotions linked to magic and responding on a whim. Blake says _I love you_ and forests sprout. She says _stay with me_ and oceans rise. That’s what happens when someone turns the world for you. Eventually, she always seems to wind up in gardens.

“Yeah,” Yang says absentmindedly, knuckles stroking just beneath her chin as she thinks. “They are.” 

Blake prompts, “Any other ideas?” 

“What about landscaping?” she suggests, taking a couple steps back. “Also, this doesn’t look as cool as I thought. I’m gonna try vines.” 

The moss crumbles to dust as if hearing her decision, leaving the stonework clean and unstained. Blake tilts her head, watches the way she stretches out her palm, face-up, and carelessly waves it upward like a beckoning. Vines burst from the dirt, winding their ways through the grooves of the rock, leaves bubbling from their stems. Yang follows the trail with her eyes, or maybe she’s directing it; they wrap around Blake’s window, creeping onto the wood, and she stalls there, satisfied. 

“See?” she says. “ _That,_ on the other hand, looks great. I could totally do landscaping.” She angles her body towards Blake, hands on her hips, examining the ground. “You think Neptune wants a pool?” 

“He’s afraid of water.” 

“Oh, yeah.” She runs her tongue against her teeth, her expression scrunching. “What about Sun? And you?” 

“You _know_ I hate getting wet.” 

“We _both_ know that’s not true,” Yang drawls back. “You love it when I–”

“Take it up with Neptune,” Blake interrupts smoothly, not allowing this road, and gives Yang a pointed glance over the rim of her sunglasses. She’s been down it before, understands exactly where it leads. She’s been down a lot of things. “And behave yourself.”

“No,” Yang says, lowering herself into a cross-legged position on the ground beside Blake. She rests her arms against the chair, her chin on her hands. “I’m bored. Have sex with me.” 

“See?” Blake reasons, lifting a hand and running her fingers gently through Yang’s hair. “You can’t be a landscaper. Landscaping makes you horny.” 

Yang laughs, smile crinkling the corners of her eyes. “Shut up,” she says. “You’re the love of my life. Aren’t you supposed to be supporting me or whatever?” 

“Oh, right,” Blake says. “Okay. I’ll have sex with you.” 

“That’s _not_ what I meant and you know it.” 

“Are you turning me down?” 

Yang sighs dramatically, but leans forward and finds Blake’s mouth with her own, kisses her hotly as if challenging the season. It’s summer, she says, and I’ll make you burn. Blake only curls her fingers, tugs Yang closer, fights the noise in her throat when Yang sucks on her bottom lip and fails.

“Turning you down?” Yang repeats, lets her voice be a catalyst for all things that grow. Her irises kick their lilac, flush only with red, and if a smirk could have a color, hers would definitely match. “Not quite right. Try again.” 

Blake gets it right the second time.


	14. silver + "nice girls love kissing the loners"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt from littlelesbianlampost: silver + "nice girls love kissing the loners". high school au, secret dating.

Weiss is _suspicious_ of the new girl.

Not that she has any right to be; she’s perfectly polite to Weiss every time they speak, even somewhat helpful when the situation calls for it, lending her pens, notes, answers. She tends to keep to herself, though other people seem to be drawn to her for reasons Weiss can’t quite comprehend; the popular boys sometimes take over her table in the dining hall during lunch, laughing and tossing fruit into each other’s mouths as she watches on, bored and haughty. Sometimes she doesn’t show up at all, disappearing to other corners of the grounds.

For all intents and purposes, the only thing Blake Belladonna’s done since transferring to Beacon is live up to her name: she’s beautiful, enigmatic, a dark charm to her like a spell, with shadow-fingers that crook and call people to ruin. And she’s a _senior_ , for fuck’s sake. Nobody transfers as a senior.

But none of that is why Weiss is suspicious. No, Weiss is suspicious because of _Yang_ \- specifically, why Yang seems so suddenly nonchalant and secretive, as if a vault were a personality trait and not a box with a lock. She and Blake never seem to hang out, but lines are always being drawn to connect them: they pass each other in the halls and exchange a look, or Yang nods at her across a room, or Blake catches her by her locker and asks her about a textbook. There’s an odd air about them, indicative of something weighted. Something close.

Here’s where it starts - Weiss has made maps, pinpointed days into coordinates - Yang’s paired up with Blake for a project in their literature class, and they meet in a library. She doesn’t go home with Weiss that day, texts her some kind of smiling emoji and a cup of coffee meant to signify _tomorrow_. But then she’s out with Blake again, and again, and again.

It’s a big project, so Weiss _sort-of_ understands. It’s all against her will. Yang’s always been studious, and Weiss can’t hold that to her now; she’s just doing the right thing for her work, and besides, she says casually, Blake’s new, and it sucks being the new girl. She’s cool, Weiss. You’d like her.

Weiss takes that as a personal challenge, and hates her from that moment on.

She expects something to _become_ of them, that’s the thing. She’s wary of replacements, losing the ground beneath her feet, but the project ends and Yang goes home with Weiss again, stops at coffee shops and bookstores and restaurants.

“Aren’t you friends?” Weiss finally asks her a few weeks later, somewhat confounded by the dynamic. “You said you liked her.”

“I do,” Yang shrugs, tossing her water bottle in the air and catching it, “and we are. But - I don’t know. I guess we’re just friends at school.”

“I never even see you _talk_ ,” Weiss says.

“You aren’t in all our classes,” Yang replies. “We talk.”

She’s cagey about it, and Weiss only understands why when she accidentally forgets her wallet in her locker on a Thursday and has to go back. She’s already said goodbye to Yang - they don’t hang out _every_ day after school, only three of the five, because Yang has club meetings, or she has to pick up her sister, or any one of her previous engagements - and so Weiss doesn’t expect to run into her again.

But she hits the sidewalk of the parking lot, blinks as she looks up, and misses a step so badly she nearly breaks her ankle, shatters every bone in her body.

If that’s dramatic, it’s because the first - the only - thing she sees is Blake Belladonna slipping onto the back of Yang’s motorcycle, a smile playing teasingly about her mouth and her hair rolling over her shoulders like a storm at midnight. What Weiss catalogues through her complete confusion is this: Blake settles behind Yang with the confidence of someone who’s done it many, _many_ times before, her hands intertwining comfortably around Yang’s waist, chest pressed against her spine. Yang says something as she revs the engine that causes Blake to laugh, and it’s the happiest Weiss has ever seen her look.

Yang backs out, peels out of the parking lot and down the street the opposite direction, and oh, Weiss thinks, she is so getting to the bottom of this.

–

She takes nothing at face value from then on. She catches every glance, every nod, every turn of their mouths, but what she can’t figure out is _why_. It’s deliberate, that much she understands; they’re purposefully playing down their friendship, acknowledging the other briefly or casually before moving on. She ropes in Pyrrha, drags the words out under her breath in a corner of the library during free period.

“Blake and Yang,” Weiss says. “They’re in your history class, right?”

“That’s right,” Pyrrha says. “Why?”

“What are they like?” Weiss probes unsettlingly. “Are they friends?”

Pyrrha raises an eyebrow. “Yes,” she answers, cautious and careful. “They sit next to each other. They’re usually partners on group projects, or in discussions.”

Weiss stares a little too hard. Pyrrha leans away. “Anything else?”

“Um,” Pyrrha says. “They’re in my gym class, too? We’re split for volleyball. They play for the same team.”

In the end, none of it’s helpful, and she’s left with fewer answers than she’d started out with.

So she defaults to the next best thing. And creepiest. Probably. Whatever. Yang’s her best friend, she’s lying, and Weiss _has_ to know.

Blake isn’t in the dining hall during lunch. Yang enters with Weiss, grabs an apple and a bag of chips. She drops her backpack onto the table, rummages through it, and pauses - Weiss sees straight to the act underneath. “Ah, shit,” she says, but the disappointment is a facade. “I forgot to grab my history textbook. I have a quiz next period. I’ll be back in a few.”

“Damn, Yang,” Nora says, shaking her head. “You’ve been forgetting all kinds of shit recently. What’s up?”

Yang laughs. “Just distracted, I guess,” she says, swinging her bag over her shoulder and heading back the way they’d come.

Weiss gets up and follows her.

Distracted is definitely the word for it - Yang doesn’t glance behind her at all, and she doesn’t head anywhere near her locker. She walks towards the lecture halls, and it’s too empty for Weiss to claim anything other than stalking. She pauses for a sign.

The door to one of the lit classrooms swings shut, and the lighting remains off. That’s unusual in itself, but then, so are the lengths she’s going to. Weiss sneaks up tentatively to the wall outside, waiting, listening; she doesn’t dare peak through the window just yet.

She can hear their voices - Yang’s she could pick humming out of a crowd, and Blake’s low, melodious tone is impossible to reproduce - and it’s quiet enough that their words are defined, recognizable. She presses closer against the wood. 

“I think they’re getting suspicious,” Yang’s saying, notes amused. “I need to come up with better excuses for skipping lunch.”

“It’s hard to be popular.”

“Shut up.” They both laugh lightly. “Seriously, though. You should just sit with us.”

“I’ll get crucified. Everyone loves you. I don’t want to have to pass a lie detector test just to prove my intentions are pure.”

They don’t _sound_ like friends, that’s all Weiss can comprehend with what she’s given, and decides it’s not enough. She can’t take it anymore; their giggling, their banter - she needs to see their faces, needs to read their expressions. It’s the only way.

She lifts herself onto her toes, shifts forward inch by inch–

“Well,” she catches Yang saying, sees the arc of her eyebrow, the half-arch of her mouth, “that’s not _totally_ right, is it?”

Blake’s sitting on a desk, legs crossed, elbow resting against her knee with her chin tucked into her hand; the smirk she’s wearing reminds Weiss of a danger zone, of the signs she sees in the mountains warning of falling rocks. Yang’s standing directly in front of her, and as Weiss watches, she steps closer, places her palms flat on either side of Blake’s thighs, one of her thumbs twisting against the fabric of her skirt.

“No,” Blake says, dropping her voice. Her smirk doesn’t waver. Weiss instantly realizes exactly what she’s seeing, and why she’s never been allowed to see it before. “It isn’t.”

“ _My_ intentions aren’t pure,” Yang purrs, slowly dipping her head. “So if they’re gonna crucify you, I’ll tell them we’re a packaged deal.”

Oh, my _God_ , they’re about to kiss, Weiss nearly panics and flings herself against the floor - oh my _God_ , oh my God - but she can’t _move_ , too mesmerized and horrified, too stunned and awed, Yang’s lips catch Blake’s and Blake drops her arm, fingers curling against Yang’s blouse, and she returns the kiss, opens her mouth, pulls her in. Oh, they aren’t friends at all, that’d entirely been the point. Weiss half-gasps and cuts it off, breath broken and uncomfortable.

“Are we?” Blake murmurs, breaking.

“I want us to be,” Yang answers, and Weiss is startled to hear her voice shake. “I’m tired of sneaking around. I mean, it’s fun, but you - I don’t _care_ what other people think. I want to be with you.”

Weiss watches them watch each other, and what a bizarre state of affairs she’s wandered into, now too invested to leave. Blake swallows, fingers playing with the hem of Yang’s collar like a habit. Weiss wonders how much time they’ve had to develop habits. Blake says, “I want that, too, but I’m just - I’m just scared. I know that’s stupid, but - I don’t know. Like they’ll think I’m not good enough for you or something.”

Okay, so, maybe Weiss has it all wrong. She’ll deal with that later. Yang says, “Then fuck them. I’m serious. If they’re my friends, they’ll be happy that I’m happy. And if they aren’t, then they probably aren’t my friends. Problem solved.”

Blake cracks into a smile, fingers brushing Yang’s bangs away from her forehead. She’s carrying an adoration too intimate to exist, and Weiss has never seen anything quite like it. “You make everything sound so _simple_.”

“That’s because it is,” Yang says, and kisses her sweetly again. “It’s you and me. Nothing’s ever made more sense to me than that.”

–

Guilt’s a thing Weiss is accustomed to feeling, but never under these circumstances.

She plans her own atonement, Yang’s words ringing around her skull. Yang’s her best friend, and she does want her to be happy, regardless of who it’s with - and there’s nothing actually wrong with Blake. She’s gorgeous, if Weiss is finally being honest, and they complement each other so well she probably would’ve picked someone like her for Yang anyway.

Blake’s in the dining hall, standing in line with the same bag of chips she sees Yang buying every other day. Weiss taps her on the shoulder. “Hey,” she says, and Blake turns to her, mildly surprised.

“Hey, Weiss,” she says. “What’s up?”

Her eyes slip just past Weiss’s shoulder; she’s sure Yang’s looking their way, too in-tune to avoid it. “Would you like to sit with us?” she asks, and offers her a smile. “I think the boys are a little too rambunctious today.”

Blake blinks, clearly surprised by the offer. “Sure,” she says, and smiles back somewhat hesitantly. “That’d be nice.”

Weiss leads her back to their table, notices the way Yang’s eyes linger on her the entire time. She slips onto the opposite bench beside Pyrrha, leaves the space next to Yang wide open. Blake pauses - so miniscule of a motion Weiss is sure nobody else notices - before lowering herself down, setting her backpack on the ground.

Yang glances at her questioningly. Blake’s eyes widen briefly and contract as if saying, _I don’t know, either._ Weiss offers the motive, “We couldn’t let Sun and Neptune torture the girl forever. I mean, _boys_ , right, Yang?”

Yang meets her gaze, conversation and confirmation wordlessly passing between them; Yang’s lips part, eyebrows twitching; she saves herself before the awkward silence, clears her throat. “Boys,” she agrees, her lips quirking at an edge.

“Blake,” Pyrrha says kindly, apparently not having noticed the moment, “feel free to join us any time. If anyone’s annoying you, we’re here.”

“Yeah!” Nora agrees, grinning. “We’ll kick their asses.”

“Thanks,” Blake says, and licks her lips, nervous energy still winding between her and Yang. Weiss can tell exactly who it’s coming from, can watch the air expanding, watch the walls blowing out–

“Actually,” Yang says unsteadily, as if it’s taking every ounce of courage she possesses to say three words, “Blake’s my - um - she’s my girlfriend.” The silence folds at the table; every pair of eyes blinks. “We’re dating.”

“Uh,” Jaune says. “What?”

“We were keeping it a…secret,” Blake says slowly, taking cues. “But I - yeah. Boys. I’m tired of them.” The sentiment nearly drowns under its many connotations, and Blake’s sheepish tone suggests she’s well aware of it. So she’s sharp, witty. Yang could definitely use someone like her.

Nora’s the first to laugh. “Oh, _awesome_ ,” she exclaims. “Sun was _totally_ into you, Blake, and now you’re dating _Yang_. That’s perfect. That’s incredible. Gay rights!” 

Yang snorts, but Weiss watches her posture relax like lifting the weight of an ocean, like unstitching seams. Blake’s smile pours open without force.

“Nora, please,” Ren says.

“How long?” Pyrrha asks slyly. “I always kind of _wondered_ , you know.”

“Why’s that?” Yang asks.

“You always picked her first in gym.”

“Well,” Yang says, tosses Blake a wink like the last month’s worth of doubt had only ever been a shadow, “she looks so _good_ in those shorts–”

Blake slaps a hand over her mouth, but her smirk speaks to the implication that Yang might have a little more experience than just _seeing_ ; they’re too casual with their contact, too familiar in their space. Their blood doesn’t sit in their cheeks, either. “That’s enough,” she says. “You just told them we’re dating. I don’t think they need any personal anecdotes.”

“I do!” Nora says, raising a hand. “Tell us about the sex–”

“No,” Blake shuts her down immediately, but she isn’t used to Nora; Yang only sighs against her hand, having seen the trap but unable to stop Blake from walking into it.

“So you _have_ had sex?” Nora says gleefully, and Blake drops her arm, bites the inside of her lip against her grin. Yang looks at her, stare flat and disbelieving.

“Oops,” she says, not at all apologetic. “Sorry.”

Yang wraps an arm around her shoulders, lips still wide, grounds cracked against earthquakes. “You’re lucky I love you,” she whispers too quietly to be overheard, but Weiss reads the impressions of her words, her mouth wrapping around them, and Blake’s eyes glitter like amber reflecting sun.

Weiss finally looks away and smiles.


	15. charcoal + "why'd you only call me when you're high?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: charcoal + "why'd you only call me when you're high?" explicit for a split second. modern college au.

_hey_ , is the text she receives from Blake that she’ll later pinpoint as the end of the world, or maybe just the beginning of an entirely new one. She’s still sweating from the gym, her hair in a ponytail and her key forgotten in the lock as she stands in front of her door to answer.

 _hey_ , Yang texts back. _what’s up?_

There are no sirens or warning bells. They’ve had each other’s numbers for awhile, and usually they’re utilized for missing assignments, party invitations. She’d call them friends, if she had to give it a definition.

_are you on campus?_

_yeah_

Blake’s reply is quick, like she’d already had it typed with her finger hovering over the send button. _do you want to come over?_

Yang takes a moment to stare at her scroll, waiting for clarification, though none ever comes. Blake’s never really asked her to _hang out_ before, and Yang’s never asked her, either. But she’s wanted to. Oh, she’s wanted to. _and do what?_

_I have a few ideas._

_sure. need to shower first._ Yang’s reply doesn’t take a ton of thought. There aren’t a lot of other prospects for the night - it’s Friday, which means the boys are throwing some party by the docks, but their planning often leaves a lot of alcohol to be desired, and Weiss is away with Pyrrha for the weekend, visiting some scenic town up the coast - and, well, Blake’s _intriguing_. That’s the truth.

 _cool_ , Blake replies. _i’m on the 12th floor. 1204._

Yang knocks on the door twenty minutes later, her hair now damp and up in a messy bun; she’d settled on casual grey sweats and a cropped white adidas sweater, rolled up to her elbows. She figures she can change if Blake decides she wants to go out, but it’s pushing nine p.m., and she likely would’ve been warned, anyway.

Blake cracks the door before she opens it, almost as a precaution, and then only just enough to let Yang in; she’s dressed similarly, black sweats and a tight tank-top that doesn’t reach the hem, leaves her stomach exposed. Her cautiousness momentarily has Yang on edge, but the minute she breathes–

“Jesus, Christ,” she says, laughing as the door shuts quickly behind them. “What’d you do, hotbox your dorm room?”

Blake grins, her stare glazed and her pupils expanding. “Is it that bad?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Shit,” she says, but she doesn’t really look too concerned. So, she’s not paranoid when she’s high. That’s a bonus. “Can you smell it from the hall?”

“No,” Yang assures her, sitting on the edge of her bed like she’s been there before, inhabited Blake’s space enough to where she’s needed. She leans back on her hands; her sweater rides up her abs. She pretends not to notice the way Blake’s eyes flicker and hold, or how she doesn’t object to casualty at all. “Open your window, stoner.”

She says it too teasingly for two people who cross paths without walking them, but Blake’s mouth only stretches wider, doing exactly as Yang suggests. “You want a hit?” she asks, picks up the blunt from her ashtray.

“Yeah,” Yang says, stands to join her. “Is this why you invited me over?”

“Hm?” Blake says, and her gaze seems to be intensely focused on the way the paper sits between Yang’s lips. She holds up her lighter, a purple _Bic_ with a black cat on it, and draws Yang closer to the flame.

Yang inhales deeply, feels the smoke settling comfortably in her lungs, and exhales slowly before it can find a home there. The tip catches, disintegrates. “Not into being high and alone?” she clarifies, smoke still unfurling from her mouth.

Blake’s a little transfixed, but she’s already high and Yang lets it slide. “Yeah,” she says, takes the blunt back from Yang. Their fingers brush. It doesn’t feel like fire, but it still burns. “And I figured you wouldn’t be at the docks after last week.”

“Total disaster,” Yang agrees, slips one hand in her pocket as she leans against the window seat. A cool breeze dances between them, dusts Blake’s bare skin, leaves her with goosebumps. She doesn’t complain. She parts her lips, lets the smoke slither out and breathes it back in through her nose, eyelashes fluttering. Yang’s a little transfixed, too, but she doesn’t have an excuse other than–“French inhale, huh?” she says, and Blake’s mouth slips up at a corner. “The girl’s got tricks.”

“Shut up,” Blake says, trying not to laugh. “I’m sure you have a few of your own.” 

“I can blow a ring or two.”

Blake passes it over again. “Let’s see,” she says, eyelids hooded; Yang hollows her throat, pushes up her tongue, and a couple smoke circles dance in front of her in quick succession. Blake raises her eyebrows, impressed. “And you call _me_ a stoner.”

“You _hotboxed_ your _dorm room_.”

She scoffs, shrugs a shoulder. The night air dips a hand through her loose curls, tugs them playfully. Yang’s starting to _notice_ things. “I was bored,” she says nonchalantly. “And I’ve been thinking.”

But she says _I’ve been thinking_ like _I’ve been thinking about you_ , and meteor showers have caused less destruction than that. Yang’s bottom lip throbs, feels full. She can hear her heart traveling up her veins. She doesn’t have an excuse; well, no other excuse than the fact that Blake is _stunningly_ gorgeous, with a voice that wraps its fingers around her throat and a body better than a skyline. So, maybe Yang’s thought about getting Blake underneath her, once or twice or twenty times.

“Oh?” Yang answers cooly, exhaling with a cocky smirk. “Thinking about what?”

“We’re friends, right?” Blake questions lowly, fingertips gliding against the windowsill as she shifts closer.

“Sure,” Yang says. She sets the blunt in the ashtray.

“So,” Blake says, danger, danger, danger–“I’m thinking we should ruin our friendship.”

The night sky blends with Blake’s irises, creates stars and sunsets. Her lips curve like crevices of the moon. Yang says, “ _This_ is why you invited me over,” and her hand drips over Blake’s side, stills at the hem between her sweats and her skin. “You were _horny_ , high and alone.”

“And _you_ were the first person I thought of,” Blake says, doesn’t waste time denying the accusation. She slips into Yang’s arm, lets it rest around her waist, her own hand dropping to Yang’s thigh. “I figured you’d be flattered.”

“I am,” Yang says, flushes from lilac to red, bombs exploding, space collapsing. The way she tilts her head, flashes her smirk, glances Blake up and down - there’s a test Blake’s passing, there’s an ocean she’s charting. Their lips meet and the planet spins, dizzies itself. Fog presses against her brainstem, but her fingers run fine without it, touching warm skin, knotting in her hair.

Even stoned, Blake kisses the way authors write, the way artists paint, the way rivers cut through mountains without drawing blood; her tongue skims Yang’s mouth and leaves fire, the pit of her stomach molten like the core of the earth. Yang tugs her bottom lip between her teeth and Blake moans, dark and desperate.

“So?” she breathes out when Yang breaks it.

“So,” Yang says, slips her fingers underneath Blake’s tank top, “let’s ruin it.”

–

It had been a good idea at the time, and it still is early the next morning when Yang lights up the rest of the blunt and goes down on her for an hour, so lost in her own senses she barely notices the time pass. It’s _so_ good of an idea, even days later, that when Weiss comes back from her trip and brings weed so potent they have to hollow out one of her scented candles for a hiding place, all Yang can think about is picking up her scroll and dialing Blake’s number.

“Hey,” Blake answers after a ring.

“Hey,” Yang says, holding the device between her shoulder and ear, paper tucked between her fingers as she rolls a joint. “Wanna get high and fuck?”

Blake doesn’t reply immediately, but when she does, her voice is an entire octave lower and sounds like sex. “God, yes,” she says. “Can I come over?”

“Yeah,” Yang says, her amusement apparent. Clearly they’d both been waiting for the excuse. “My roommate’s staying over at her girlfriend’s tonight. I’m 1510.” 

“Great,” Blake says. “Be there in like, half an hour.”

Blake looks _good_ when she shows up - she’s wearing high-waisted shorts with a white crop top, tan-and-grey patterned cardigan hanging off one shoulder, black boots adding a couple inches. Her eyeliner accents the gold of her irises, leaves her in glitter.

Yang’s gaze slants, lures her in. “Mm,” she says, slips a finger through Blake’s belt loop. “I have a feeling you weren’t dressed up for me, though, were you?”

Blake loops her arms around Yang’s neck. “I was on a date,” she reveals, breath hot against her mouth. “But you gave me a better offer.”

“With who?”

“Sun Wukong.”

Yang doesn’t laugh, but her smirk saunters, pouring gasoline onto a wildfire. It’s not meant for ego, only honesty, and Yang slips up a hand, tips of her fingers skimming Blake’s neck. It’s a veiled kind of threat, one that soaks in sin instead of severity. Blake’s pulse hammers hard, says it needs her.

Yang keeps their first kiss hot, barely brushes their lips before pulling back, leaving Blake wanting, chasing; it’s a game they’re playing, and until Blake understands the rules she won’t get what she’s asking for. She finally stills, holds her breath, and Yang sinks back in, nips at her bottom lip, sweeps her tongue over Blake’s. Blake shifts her weight like she’s wet from that alone.

“Boys,” Yang murmurs, eyes drenched red, the petals of a rose before it opens. “They never know _what_ to do with their tongues.”

–

So, maybe it’s _kind-of_ Yang’s fault for going along with it, but it’s so _fun_ to get high with Blake and fuck. They laugh together by the window, talk about other lives and parallel dimensions until Blake’s pupils are so big Yang thinks she finds the rest of the universe in them, whirling and colliding. There’s always a point they can’t take anymore - Blake says her mind feels like wool, Yang says she can only see in pixels - and then Yang pushes her back against the mattress, slips three fingers into her, fucks her senseless. She always retaliates, tongue meticulously working Yang’s cunt, says it’s the only taste she swears makes her mouth water.

All in all, it works. For about two months.

But then Yang’s sober, it’s Saturday, and she’s alone. She doesn’t have weed and her dealer isn’t answering her texts. She can only think of Blake’s laughter pressing imprints into her skin like stamps, how she smiles and the world doesn’t disappear, just gets up and walks away from them. She can only think of Blake’s thighs, how her muscles tremble and clench, how high-strung she gets when Yang doesn’t let her come, whining against the palm of her hand.

She can’t even finish the daydream without un-becoming - she dismantles, turns to floorboards and nails, turns to silk and spools, turns to water and oil - she picks up her scroll, finds Blake under _Favorites_.

“Hey,” Blake answers immediately.

“Hey,” Yang says, too throaty and breathless. “Look. I don’t have anything to smoke. But if I don’t eat you out in the next twenty minutes, I’m gonna lose my fucking mind.”

“Holy shit,” Blake exhales, her voice breaking itself apart from the inside out. “ _Shit_. Fine. Yes. I’m coming over.” She shifts the scroll away from her ear, clearly intending to hang up, and Yang hears her final words to whoever she’s with: “ _Hey_ ,” she says distantly, “ _this just isn’t gonna work. I’m already in love with someone else_.”

–

Yang forces her against the back of the door the minute it shuts, kisses her not like the apocalypse but like she’s intent on being the one to cause it. Her hands cups Blake’s cheeks, feel the way the blood pools there, how her lips throb, how sound travels out between them and says things she doesn’t mean to say, or means to say but doesn’t intend Yang to hear. Her body shivers despite the heat, her thighs slick, her heart pulling itself apart.

“You know,” Yang says against her mouth, “you should _really_ be more careful.”

“What?” Blake asks, halfway to gone with her shirt unbuttoned. Her fingernails dig crescents into Yang’s shoulders.

Yang presses kisses to her mouth, her jawline, peppers up to her ear. Her breath melts against it. “What if I didn’t love you back?” she murmurs, takes Blake’s earlobe between her teeth, and Blake trembles so violently Yang’s momentarily worried she won’t comprehend a word. “That would’ve been awkward.”

It takes the room spinning, Yang’s hands underneath her thighs, dragging her against the mattress. “Wait,” she says. “What?”

“You didn’t hang up,” Yang says, sucks hard on the skin covering her collarbone. There’s a lot more to ruin than friendship, Yang’s learned. “I heard what you said.”

“Oh my God,” Blake whispers, but can’t help tossing her head back, can’t help how her spine curves the way glass melts. “Oh my _God_ \- wait - you–”

She seems to finally frame the outline of what Yang’s said, dropping the pieces with enough of an order to fill it - she threads her fingers through Yang’s hair, tugs her up, captures her mouth again and again and again.

“Yeah,” Yang says, grin bursting through seduction. “Yeah, I love you too, you fucking stoner.”

“Shut up,” Blake says, and the way she smiles sparks a different kind of high; there’s mountaintops and space stations, skyscrapers and constellations. “I’m done with all that. I have you.”


	16. lilac; I'm not strong enough to stay away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt: lilac; I'm not strong enough to stay away. canon-compliant.

Atlas is hostile, treacherous, and unforgivingly cold.

Despite the hero’s escort Ruby’s silver-eyed powers and the end of the attack on Argus had granted them, the rest of the population doesn’t seem to believe it owes them anything. They’re forced to stop on the outer reaches of the border - airspace is too tightly controlled for exceptions to the military’s top general - and then only allowed the rest of the trip to the capitol via the national lines. In some ways it’s preferable not having to make the journey on foot, roofs above their heads in between storms and blizzards.

In other ways - they all shift uncomfortably outside of a restaurant with a sign that reads _no faunus allowed_ \- it’s unquestionably worse.

Blake crosses her arms, turns away with her ears flat; Yang’s vibrating at her side, anger so palpable her semblance is likely a hair-trigger away from firing on its own. Ice fights with her, struggles to solidify against the drips from the tips of its spikes, but doesn’t seem to be winning that battle. Just because something flourishes does not mean that it should be allowed to.

“Disgusting,” she spits viciously, and the rest of them only hum in agreement.

“I’m tempted to set it on fire,” Weiss says conversationally, fingers twitching, “but I know better than to think it ends here.”

“It’s fine,” Blake says, resigned. “Let’s just go.” She rests a hand on Yang’s arm, begs her forward without a word. Yang acquiesces to Blake’s touch as she always does, follows her lead. She’s not above making scenes, but sometimes they’re not worth the energy.

Yes, the racism’s the worst part of Atlas, no question about it; Blake’s faced with an onslaught of cruel murmurs and appalled stares from the moment they get off the airship, finding solace only in the few moments they’re spared some time alone, and then, _alone_. It’s said with implication. There are two sides to it, as there always are.

With that said, the second worst part of Atlas is her relationship with Yang: intense, undefined, and completely, totally secret.

She isn’t weak. She’s prided herself on that in recent time more than she has previously, and she wants it to stick, to hold, to mean something, but–

 _Filthy_ , a man whispers to his wife as he passes them down the cobblestone road, and sometimes all Blake wants to do is curl up in Yang’s arms and _cry_.

She’d known this about Atlas, that’s the thing. She’s been treated like this for most of her life. It’s the frustration that wears her down now, runs her over and through more than the actual hurt does. Atlas is the proof that in spite of everything, there are still places that seem as if they’ll never, ever change; that somewhere, she’ll always be unwanted.

Yang subtly tugs at her jacket, slowing her walk to a halt. “Hey,” she says shortly to the rest of the group as Blake pauses beside her, confused, “you look for somewhere to eat. We’re going to stop here and grab a hot tea. We’ll meet up with you.”

She says it so firmly and matter-of-fact that nobody questions her, let alone dares to invite themselves; her expression, her posture, her tone - she’s the ground before it splits, the fire before the windstorm. Ruby offers them a sad, half-smile before continuing their trudge along, glancing at windows, menus, and finally fading away.

Yang links their fingers together, tugs her gently to the door of the teahouse. She pushes it open and the bell chimes, the hostess glancing up with a polite smile already in place. “Hello,” she greets nicely, and crooks an eyebrow at the way Yang hovers, Blake just behind her. “Can I help you?”

“Are faunus allowed here?” Yang asks bluntly, her voice barely tempered, flat with a sharp edge.

The hostess blinks once in comprehension. “Oh, yes, of course,” she says nicely, and Yang opens the door wider, makes room for the two of them to enter. It’s mostly empty, only a single other woman sitting in the corner reading a book. “We don’t allow discrimination here. Of any kind.”

It’s warmer inside, lighter, smells like jasmine and honey. Blake says, “That’s a relief to hear, after the day we’ve had.”

“Would you like to sit, or have something to go?”

“To go, please,” Yang says. She’s relaxing somewhat under the less-oppressive atmosphere, tension unwiring from underneath her skin. She flexes her fingers in Blake’s, glances down at her. She’s already so much softer. ”Go ahead.”

The hostess takes their orders, directs them to a small window where they can wait; Yang pays with minimal objections. It was my idea, she says, so don’t worry about it. It’s all a group fund at this point, anyway. She isn’t wrong and Blake allows it without further argument.

“I’m sure it’s difficult, being here, surrounded by - by - these _people_ ,” the hostess says, quiet and empathetic, “but good ones exist, too. They’re out there, I promise.”

Blake smiles, tightens her grip around Yang’s hand. “I know they are.”

They step off to the side, waiting for their orders. Yang doesn’t pull away from the display of affection; not that she would, regardless of who was staring at them - it’s always Blake, keeping their secrets to herself until there’s no possible way they can be used against her. She sighs, shifts her weight to her left, shoulders brushing through their coats.

“You okay?” Yang asks gently, heat from her never gone, only subdued. The lilac of her eyes is too vibrant amidst a colorless sky, a wall-less room. The snow coats the ground outside, unchallenged until it found itself beneath her feet. Atlas, Blake thinks, has never seen anything quite like her.

Yang’s still waiting for an answer, but all Blake can do is claim their moment of peace for herself instead of fight it; it’s been weeks, months, years, and it’s something she’s tired of. She slips into Yang’s arms, wraps her hands around Yang’s shoulders, lets her eyelids flutter closed. Yang doesn’t speak, merely hums and pulls her closer, casually, candidly - this - this could be a scene, but she won’t make it one. Blake isn’t weak. Yang’s aware of this fact better than anyone.

“Yeah,” Blake murmurs, breathes against the fleece collar of her coat. “I am now.”

Yang curls a single arm around her waist, drops a kiss to the top of her head, and for a few tranquil minutes they’re content to go unnoticed.


	17. amethyst + "wild tempests won't tear me away from your arms"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt by yangonfire: amethyst + "wild tempests won't tear me away from your arms". canon-compliant.

The trees have eyes and mouths and claws. Snow blows stark against the black sky, flurry hurtling towards the windowpanes the way ghosts manifest, unexpectedly and full of terror. She expects faces with hollow sockets and jaws gnashing wildly to rise from the storm. Death never ends. It only consumes.

The fire’s flickering - she should get up and stoke it, disturb the embers enough to catch, but there’s a foot of space between the bed and the floor and her ankles are exposed, nightgown resting just above her knees. She thinks of fingers curling around bone. She thinks of how branches snap. The fire stays smoldering, trying its best alone.

The knock at her door manages not to be startling, light and quiet, knob turning a moment later. “Blake?” a voice whispers, blonde hair still bright in the dull glow. “You up?”

“Yeah,” Blake says, arms hooked around her knees, chin resting between them.

Yang takes a short glance back, slips into the room, door closing quietly behind her. The lock clicking manages to keep off stereo. It’s not as if they aren’t allowed to be doing what they’re doing, but sneaking into each other’s beds is likely not the best way for the information to be found out.

“I can’t sleep,” Yang says, automatically picking up the poker and crouching beside the fire when she notices the chill of the room. They’re obstacles that make sense to her, but are far easier for her to conquer. The flames flare up against the unburned parts of the wood.

“Me neither.”

She drops the poker back onto its hook, flashes Blake a glance, bottom lip held loosely between her teeth. Already the room is warmer, but, Blake thinks, that probably has more to do with who’s in it rather than the fire itself. Yang says slyly, “Got any room over there? I know you like to take up the entire bed, but–”

Blake’s sudden giggling jars her into reality, interrupts the rest of Yang’s sentence. The floor comes into view again, the locked door, the tightly-latched windows. Nothing waits beneath her; nothing hovers outside the walls. It’s strange to be present. “Shut up,” she says, lifts her head; her knees slip cross-legged. “I don’t _take up the entire bed._ ”

“Last night I woke up hanging off the edge.” Yang ambles closer, steps solid against the wood. She’s brave in the face of empty space, of nooks and corners and hiding places. “With you curled up against my back.”

“Yes, because _you_ throw yourself around in your sleep, and _I_ was just trying to stay warm.” Blake’s voice hinges defiant, but she’s smiling. Yang mirrors her mouth, settles comfortably in front of her, one leg crossed and foot pressed against her thigh.

“Mhm,” Yang says. Her eyes glitter more than the amount of light washing across the room should allow. “Sure, baby.”

Blake’s lips snap shut, her heart thumping against her ribs. It’s still so new; casual endearments, light touches, kisses when she isn’t prepared for them - her body packs her brain up, sends it on a break. She takes an embarrassingly long time to reply, blood settling in her cheeks. Yang’s much, much faster than her, and she likes to prove it.

She leans closer, spine curving, hair dragging against the sheets. Her smile is both blithe and wicked, one of her palms wrapping against Blake’s knee. “ _Baby_ ,” she murmurs again, and Blake holds her own breath hostage. “Wanna sleep with me?”

The noise Blake makes isn’t known to mimic any human sound - Yang cracks wide open and laughs at it, Blake’s blood now a cry for help underneath her skin. “Fuck you,” is all she can say, but her eyelids flutter when Yang dips in for a kiss. 

“I meant _literally_ , you fucking pervert,” Yang whispers as she pulls away, all faux-innocence and density. “I’m exhausted. Big day ahead of us tomorrow.” Her pupils dart to Blake’s mouth and back, kissing her again, decidedly more bold. Blake’s bottom lip throbs against her tongue; Yang always manages to leave her aching.

“It’s always a big day,” Blake says, finally opening her eyes. “And I’m always exhausted.”

Ah, the truth of it all; Atlas is harder on her than it is anyone else, except perhaps Weiss herself. The line of Yang’s mouth softens at the statement. “We really should sleep, then,” she says, flirtatiousness fading easily from her tone. She’s only care, concern, empathy. “How’s that sound?”

“Good,” Blake says, tips forward into Yang’s arms, buries her face in the crook of her neck; Yang enfolds her, hands counting every layer of her spine. Now, she thinks, now there is nothing to be afraid of in the dark. All this room is full. “Don’t let go of me, okay?”

“Oh, baby,” Yang sighs into her hair, the tip of her ear, lowers Blake back against the mattress as carefully as she can manage. Blake adjusts herself in Yang’s embrace, their bodies intertwining the same as that ember into coal, flickering from orange to black. “I won’t. Even if I have to stay awake all night to ensure I don’t fling myself off the bed.”

Blake laughs tiredly against her collarbone. Outside, the snow has lost its teeth, and the wind no longer screeches as if in pain. Everything is a ghost until it is seen in the light. She says, “You know I love you, right?”

“Yeah,” Yang says, quiet as afternoon, tender as summer. Everything Blake misses lives inside of her. She kisses the crown of Blake’s head, draws a heart with her prosthetic fingers against the dimples of Blake’s lower back. “I know.”

“This is the part where you say it,” Blake mumbles teasingly, her eyelashes like ash against her cheekbones. The shadows have all fled, weak in the face of sun. 

“Last night I had a dream about you,” Yang begins instead, words too gentle to be anything other than cosmic. “I just - held you. Like this. For hours. And when I woke up this morning, I was - I was holding you the same way. And I think that’s greater than love, you know?” It’s rhetorical, taking a conversational tone with the universe. Blake knows her lips are pulled up at the corners, paints her soft expression without physically being able to see it. Yang’s more than that entire sky. “I can’t even dream something better than you.” 


	18. pink + “my girl, I think I'm in love, It's the scariest place to be alive”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt by sunnysaiyan: pink; “my girl, I think I'm in love, It's the scariest place to be alive”. modern/high-school au.

It’s a Tuesday night over summer break when the revelation hits, and nothing’s even happening.

They’re sprawled out together on the couch, eating pizza and watching some old black-and-white horror flick on television. Blake’s head is resting in her lap, black hair spilling out over her thighs like running ink, and Yang tosses her other arm casually across her stomach, purely because there’s nowhere else comfortable to put it. Blake’s ears twitch occasionally, automatic reactions to every skin-crawling sound effect, the creaking of doors, footsteps in the night, sudden screeching apparitions. She’s dangling a slice above her mouth carelessly, cheese slippery against the sauce.

“If you spill that on me,” Yang says, watching the bottom tear under the weight of the anchovies, “I’ll kill you.”

“Oh, relax,” Blake says, taking a big bite and sliding it back onto her paper plate next to Yang’s feet, kicked up on the coffee table. “You’re just discriminatory.”

“Discriminatory?” Yang repeats disbelievingly. “Against _what_?”

“Anchovies.”

Yang sweeps her fingers mindlessly through Blake’s hair. The movie’s ceasing to entertain her, though not much ever competes with Blake, anyway. “They’re disgusting.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“Wow.”

Blake finally tears her eyes away from the screen, unable to contain her laughter at the mock offense seeding Yang’s tone. “I’m kidding,” she says, running her teeth against her bottom lip. “You’re fine.”

“Oh, that’s much better.” Yang tugs playfully on a curl, tucks it behind Blake’s human ear. “I think you’re the most beautiful girl in the world, and all I get is _fine_.” 

“Shut up,” Blake says, her cheeks pooling with hot embarrassment. Her lips burn pink, irises like wedding bands. “You don’t _really_ think that.”

“I do,” Yang teases, or means to and misses entirely; the words come too naturally soft, not as a whisper but with the intent of one. Blake pauses, stares up at her, and Yang vaguely comprehends the palm of Blake’s hand settling over the back of hers. Summer heat sinks through her skin and Yang wonders if her mouth carries the same weight. Her tongue briefly slips between her lips, wets them, nervous and uncertain.

“You’re the beautiful one,” Blake murmurs, brushing the knuckles of her free hand against Yang’s cheek, and her blood rushing through her veins scrapes as if suddenly raw. “You always have been.”

“Belladonna,” Yang says, shocked to hear herself breathless, “shut up and take the compliment.”

In the background, there’s the sound of a slashing knife and tearing flesh, and someone’s heart ends up scattered across the floor.

\--

Weiss is the second one to notice.

It’s a month later, a Thursday drenched in warm rain and thunderstorms. School’s not due to start up again for a few weeks, and they’re taking full advantage of an empty house; Blake’s parents are away at some summit meeting for the night. Yang rides her bike there, leaves it sitting against the porch under the awning, a bottle of Qrow’s cheap tequila tucked into her backpack. Weiss, on the other hand, breaks into her dad’s liquor cabinet, sneaks over with a few bottles of fancy wine and some disgustingly rich bourbon that only Blake ends up being able to tolerate.

Blake’s flushed and giggling with the back of her hand held to her mouth. Yang’s tracing all of her lines and edges, half-smiling like the slant of that falling rain tapping gently against the roof, one knee crooked with an arm resting on it. She’s drawing, painting. Blake’s hair spirals over her shoulders in loose waves, reminds Yang of the night sky if it had a tide. Every giggle sends Yang’s smile wider, stitching pulling free and spreading. Weiss lifts her wine glass to her lips and stops, stares at her through the rim, an eyebrow quirked curiously.

“I have an idea,” she announces. Blake chokes on her bourbon, causes Yang to laugh. They’re stupid-drunk, the kind where they’re on the brink of honesty and enthusiasm for making decisions that only look good under the light, the kind they’ll pretend to shrug off in the morning after ignoring the way they wake up tangled around each other.

“What?” Yang asks, taking a drink from Blake’s glass and grimacing with a shake of her head. Weiss thinks of probing, exposing her - why are you _drinking_ it if it’s so terrible - but she sees Blake place her lips exactly where Yang’s have just been, and oh, she knows. Maybe they both do.

Weiss isn’t stupid-drunk. She’s fun-drunk, manipulative-drunk, oh-shit-my-best-friend’s-got-a-crush-drunk. They’re seventeen. Sometimes these things just happen. “Truth or dare,” she says.

“Dare,” Blake says immediately, not realizing Weiss had only been proposing the game rather than actually challenging her to it.

Doesn’t matter. She’ll take it. Yang only gazes on, expression serene and calm and innocent. That’s going to change. “I dare you,” she says, sugary-thick and sweet, “to kiss Yang. And I mean, like, _kiss_ her. Not like we’re thirteen year-olds playing spin-the-bottle in Jaune’s basement.”

There’s a singular pause while time puts itself on hold. Blake sets her glass down - it sloshes against the rim, fortunately doesn’t spill - and Yang’s already so close to her. Neither of them are sure of when that happened, or how. They make eye contact, and something wordless passes between them, something Weiss can’t decipher even if she tries. Not all codes are meant to be cracked.

Blake’s fingers push Yang’s bangs out of the way, drop across her cheek and down to her jaw. Yang only looks on, slightly star-struck in the most literal sense of the phrase; there’s a sky crashing down above them, there’s the roar of collapse. Her eyes are wide, lips parted as if she can’t remember another way to breathe. Blake’s stare flutters back and forth and her irises are fireflies, blinking in and out of existence.

Shockingly, Blake isn’t the one who leans in, and Weiss can actually sense the moment the tension cracks, thunders like the storm outside. Something shifts in the universe: there’s a fractured moon, there’s a planet unaligned. Somewhere a black hole swallows an entire galaxy and a supernova creates a new one. Yang breaks - she breaks like she’s never realized how simple it is to do, as if _breaking_ is a thing that leaves no need for repair, only the task of becoming again - and Blake’s bottom lips slides easily between hers, Yang’s fingers following the curve of her skull around her ear, hands spreading into her hair.

It’s the complete lack of hesitation that makes Weiss realize the truth. They kiss and it’s like they’ve done it a thousand times before - there’s no awkward adjustments of their mouths, no bumping teeth, no skittish fingers - it’s like watching the creation of a puzzle before it’s split into different pieces, seeing the whole of what it should be rather than what it is. They kiss once, twice - on the third, Blake’s drunk and brave and her tongue sweeps across Yang’s bottom lip - and then lightning strikes, weaves through the sky, and Blake pulls away, shuddering.

There’s a split second of time where they lock eyes and say nothing. Blake’s smile curls, slow and shy. Yang lowers her arm, brushes her thumb across Blake’s lip, red and full, lets her own grin flower in response.

“You,” she says, drowning in open adoration, “are _trouble_ when you’re drunk.”

In years to come, Weiss will remember this and think only one thing: _I should’ve looked away._

\--

“You love her,” Weiss says quietly. It’s three in the morning and Blake’s passed out against Yang’s shoulder, which is how these things normally go. Blake gravitates to her, always has; it’s just the state of affairs. Now Weiss knows why. She’s never seen inevitability until now.

“Yeah,” Yang says. The admission comes easier than Weiss expects it to, but it’s the time of night that beckons secrets be told. Like they’re so real they can be made tangible. Like they’re so real they can’t be real at all. Blake only continues breathing peacefully, wrapped up in Yang’s embrace.

“What’s it like?” Weiss whispers. The room’s dark and her vision struggles to adjust. The walls are coated in a thousand tiny pinpricks of light and absence of color, greys and blacks.

Yang stands out. All Weiss discerns is the way her fingers dance up and down Blake’s arm, the same motion she’d eased Blake to sleep with in the first place nearly an hour ago.

“Scary,” she says honestly. “Terrifying.”

Blake lifts a hand in her sleep, palm coming to rest over Yang’s heart, fingers in a half-curl. Yang swallows, pulse hammering so hard Weiss swears she can hear it echoing inside of Yang’s chest.

“But good,” she adds in a soft whisper, and in the darkness Weiss spots the tilt of her jaw, and the quiet sound of the kiss she presses against the crown of Blake’s head.

\--

Ruby’s the last one. It’s not her fault.

She finds the two of them sitting on the porch swing the weekend after schools starts, Blake’s legs across Yang’s lap and her head nestled in the crook of Yang’s neck. Yang’s rocking them slowly, forward and back, bare feet pressed against the ground. The air isn’t quite in the mood for fall, still damp and warm from summer, though the cool breeze and the colored leaves speak to changing hands.

They seem to be talking in low, hushed tones, broken by bits of laughter and playful insults. It’s just how it always is, how it’s been for years; that’s what Ruby thinks, anyway, when she steps out front to ask them what they want for dinner.

But then she catches Yang’s left arm wrapped around Blake’s waist, her fingers aimlessly dipping against the ridges of Blake’s spine like a mindless habit. She catches Blake’s lips a little too close to Yang’s jaw, the way her blood temporarily makes a home in her cheeks. She catches how the world narrows in, how delicate lines vanish, how space seems to have forgotten its place.

She meets Yang’s eyes, and Yang smiles, looking away.


	19. alt ending - what i'm trying to say is i think i love you again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is from a different set of prompts awhile ago and i'm finally adding it now. prompt: alternate ending to "what i'm trying to say is i think i love you again."

“How did you propose?” Weiss asks.

“Actually,” Blake says with a sly grin, “ _I_ proposed.”

–

(Nothing is happening at all, that’s the first step.

She wakes up to the sound of the tea kettle whistling and finds Yang sitting at their kitchen table with a pencil, casually scratching through a rival newspaper. Her coffee mug rests half-empty beside her, dark rings staining the inside like age lines of a tree. Blake pads to the stove, and Yang throws her a smile, her eyes bright as Blake reaches for a cup.

“And how’s the news today?” Blake asks, voice scratchy with sleep, holding her robe tighter around herself.

“No idea,” Yang says blithely. “I’m doing the crossword puzzle.”

Blake laughs, adding honey to her tea. “You’re really taking that grudge to your grave, huh?” she poses rhetorically, turning around and leaning against the counter, one ankle kicked over the other. Yang’s smile spreads knowingly.

“Mercury’s a fucking idiot,” she says. “And every time I complete his insanely simple crossword puzzles, I’m reminded of that fact. It’s a great way to start my mornings.”

There’s too much adoration settling throughout the room, maybe that’s the second step; the way the sun drips through the curtains, burns itself white-hot and bruising just to be admired, and it doesn’t even compare to the girl sitting at the table, her tongue held thoughtfully between her teeth, her stare focused; the way Blake’s blood runs warm like it’s underneath someone else’s skin, and her heart beating steadily without the threat of war.

Blake moves behind her, presses her lips to the top of Yang’s head. “You’re a great way to start my mornings.”

Oh, well, they can’t keep up appearances for long. Yang tilts her head back, teasing. “What, can’t manage my mouth? It’s been, like, six years and you still can’t handle morning breath?”

Blake rolls her eyes, sets her mug on the table, and leans over, kisses her half upside-down and awkward, Yang giggling against her the whole time. Blake pulls away, smiling. “ _You’re_ an idiot,” she says, too fond for insults. Yang pats the chair next to her and Blake sits, leaning her elbow on the table, chin against the back of her hand.

“Not according to this crossword puzzle,” Yang says, gesturing back to the paper, pencil still held loosely in her hand. “Six down - five letter word starting with M, ending with Y. Clue: nuptial ceremony.”

 _Marry_ , the word comes to Blake’s mind instantly, just as she’s sure it comes to Yang’s, but Yang is still carrying that playful air about her, tone of proving points. Blake’s suddenly far, far ahead, somewhere twenty years down the line with a ring on her finger and a cat snuggled between them in bed, they’re arguing the color of the walls but they manage to agree on the garden, they meet Weiss and Ruby for family dinners once a week, there are children laughing with them in the mornings–

“Marry me,” is what Blake says instead of the sole answer, her hand falling away from her chin. She says it breathlessly, wound up in fantasies and ideas and _forever_.

Yang looks at her, light expression fading from her face into something subtly confused, disbelieving. “What?” she asks, the slightest widening of her eyes.

“Marry me,” Blake repeats, taking Yang’s hand in her own, and all at once she comprehends the desperation of it; she _needs_ Yang, needs to spend the rest of her life curled up in her arms, needs to watch her smile and know that it is safe. “I don’t have a ring yet, and I don’t - I don’t have any grand speech prepared, but - you’re the reason I’m _alive_. I swear I was meant for you from the very beginning, even if I lost my way in the middle.” She fights the wavering tone, fights the breaking of it. “I want the rest of it with you - this life and whatever comes next. Marry me.”

“Oh my God,” Yang breathes out, her eyes wide and glistening, tears filling them and threatening to drop. She just stares, her lips parted in awe, her body held as if waiting for the joke to crack, the _just kidding!_ to come, cruel and tired.

“Was that not enough?” Blake asks, lips quirking nervously. “I’m a writer. I can do better.”

The memory of the sentiment alone seem to snap Yang out of whatever daze she’s lost in, tears finally falling over her cheeks, down her chin. “Oh my God,” she says again, her throat tight and closing around her words. “You - you’re really - you want to _marry_ me?”

“More than anything,” Blake says, cups her cheeks in her hands, brushes her thumbs through the tears rolling down her face. “I love you. I’ve loved you forever. I’ll say it as many times as you want me to. _Marry me_.”

“Yes,” Yang says, and she draws Blake’s mouth to hers, but her lips are a cross between laughing and crying and she winds up burying her head in the crook of Blake’s neck instead, the joy finally winning. “Oh my God,” she says, her wide smile apparent in her voice. “I always thought it’d be me. I thought it’d be _me_.”

“What do you mean?” Blake asks, trying to blink back her own tears; it’s too contagious, there’s too much to love in her arms; Yang pulls back, wipes at her eyes, and stands up.

“Wait here,” she says, and she races into their bedroom, returning with a small velvet box in her hands. Her expression is full of things she once thought she’d never feel again. She opens it, reveals black diamonds surrounding an amethyst on a gold band, and Blake loses her own battle, laughs into her hands and cries.

There’s relief, there’s belonging, there’s a sense of rightness to the world; time doesn’t freeze, it ceases to exist entirely. The walls melt down into ash, the ceiling collapsing in on them, books leaping from their shelves. Photographs fling off their hooks and shatter their glass. Outside, the trees shed their bark and turn to dust; the moon fuses into the sun and promptly burns itself brighter than it’s ever been. The sky breathes easy and is no longer laced in shadow. Their ghosts are here, but they don’t haunt them anymore.

That’s the third step, Blake thinks. Peace.)


	20. snowball fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> wrote this awhile ago on tumblr but kept forgetting to add it here! canon-compliant, v7. sometimes they just need a minute to be young again.

Jaune’s the one who throws the first punch.  


Figuratively, anyway; in this case, it’s actually a snowball, and it smacks the back of Ruby’s head with thump and a crunch loud enough that everyone stops and turns to look at him, confused without defense. Ice clings to her skull, dampens her hair. She’s wordless for a moment.

They’re exhausted. It’s still only late afternoon. They’re close to home - or what’s counting as home for the moment - and all they really want to do is unravel all their layers, warm up in front of the fire. And Ruby, well - Ruby’s tired of dead-ends, of struggling, of not being taken seriously. She’s too old for the age she should be. They’re all aware of that, even if she wishes they weren’t.

“Did you just hit me with a _snowball_?” she asks, her brow furrowing. 

“Maybe,” he taunts teasingly. “Think you can take me?” 

There’s a collective breath released, a softening; they all know exactly what he’s doing. Sometimes it’s up to them to relieve the burdens of a long day. Sometimes it’s okay to not be crushed under the weight of a thousand ancient locks and keys.

“ _I_ definitely can,” Weiss says, hand on her hip with a smirk, a challenge of drawing sides. Nora grins evilly, cracks her knuckles.

“You _would_ say that, Ice Queen.”

“Hey!”  


Blake presses herself closer to Yang’s side. “Are we _really_ doing this?” she says under her breath, already bracing against the inevitable downfall. 

“Don’t worry,” Yang whispers, entirely in her element. “I’m not gonna let even a single flake touch you.” 

“It’s snowing,” Blake points out. “They’re touching me right now.” 

Yang throws her head back theatrically, stares at the sky full of threat. “I’ll fuck you up,” she warns nothing, and Blake laughs adoringly, lips quirking at the edges.

They’re mostly ignored, now, as they always are, until Yang’s hit in the chest by Nora, Blake using her body as a shield as they make a run for some actual cover - Weiss’s fingers twitch on on her sword, and suddenly there’s a bunker two feet deep in the snow, wall rising up to shield them. Nora halts mid-throw, scowling as she backs up. Ren’s already scanning the field for safety, darting behind a tree. 

“Hey!” Yang calls, fake-stern and firm. Blake slides down a snowbank near them, only her ears poking over the top. “No weapons! That’s cheating!” 

“What’re you gonna do?” Ruby shouts back. “Gonna come over here and stop us?”

A snowball whizzes past her face, and Yang ducks behind the snowbank, snickering breathlessly. “Geez,” she says, tilting her head to peek; Ren’s tossing snowballs with such speed that they blur into bullets, managing to dent the wall Weiss has built. “Not sure this is really our fight, Blake.” 

“No,” Blake agrees, ears twitching against her head. “Snow isn’t really my thing to begin with, either.” 

“I could totally beat Ruby’s ass if she didn’t have Weiss building like, fucking igloos for cover.” 

Blake laughs, humoring her, and digs her fingers into the snow. “I believe you.” 

She works on making a few at a time, packs the ice tightly together, and Yang lobs them in Nora’s general direction; considering her, Jaune, and Ren are the only people they actually have a chance at hitting, it’s a half-hearted attempt at best. They’re out of their league and they know it. Blake thinks it’s worth it just to hear the way Yang laughs, nineteen and carefree, exactly who she’s supposed to be.  

“Nora’s peeking from behind the tree,” Yang says, and immediately ducks again as strangely large chunk of snow flies overhead; apparently they’re getting impatient. “Take the shot, Blake!” 

Blake shifts onto her knees, lifts herself up with a snowball in hand, zeroes in--

Ice hits her directly in the face with such force that it knocks her backwards, sends haphazardly into Yang’s arms; she isn’t hurt by the blow, just slightly stunned by it, but it’s enough time out for Yang to see the opportunity and grab it shamelessly. 

“Blake!” she wails dramatically, wrapping Blake up in a tighter hug. “No! You _monsters_ \- she was so young - so _young_ \- she had her whole life ahead of her, and now--” 

“Shut up!” Weiss yells as Ruby laughs. “You’re next, Yang!” 

“Can’t you give me a minute to fucking _grieve_!” Yang hollers back, and Blake’s lips twitch despite the fact that she’s playing dead. Yang drops her forehead against Blake’s, continues her performance. “Maybe,” she says coyly, her breath warm against Blake’s cheek, “there’s still a way. Maybe _true love’s kiss_ will save her.” 

Oh, it’s _this_ road again, it’s _this_ bridge, the one they’ve danced in front of but never crossed - she forgets all about being cold, tired, wet; she’s held in the embrace of summer, all the ice is melting - Yang’s humming playfully in her throat, mouth dipping lower, and then--

Blake smacks the side of Yang’s head with the snowball she hadn’t managed to throw and it breaks apart into her hair, down her neck, drips under her jacket; she laughs rather than shrieks, having been aware of the maneuver and allowing it anyway. She pulls away with a grin so open and guiltless that all Blake can do is mirror it, smile brighter than the white of the landscape surrounding them. Sometimes, she’s learning, it’s okay to be honest where other people can see her. 

“Stop _flirting_!” Ruby screams, and chucks another snowball at them, though she fortunately misses. 

Yang helps her to her feet, fingers tucked together, and waves with her free hand. “We surrender!” she says before anyone can try and pelt them further - Nora throws one anyway, and Yang flips her off - and Blake follows her to the sidelines with her heart in the center of her palm, blood absorbing sun. Once they’re safe enough out of the way, Yang turns to her, brushes the snow off of her shoulders, her hair, runs a thumb against her jawline. 

“Think you’re gonna make it?” she asks cutely, and Blake finds that unexplored road again, imagines sprinting across it. Yang doesn’t even need the practice. Nothing scares her anymore.

“I’m not sure,” Blake plays along. “It’s still up in the air.” 

Yang tilts her head; there’s a battle raging behind them, but a softer, simpler one in Yang’s eyes. It’s an open-ended challenge, and she’s figuring out what to do with it, how far to go, what to push - there’s a step she can take, there’s a way forward-- 

She tugs on Blake’s hand and Blake acquiesces, moves closer before she’s released entirely; a second later and Yang’s fingers find Blake’s hips instead, guiding her with a pressure so light it can only be a suggestion. The way Yang touches her - here’s where she’s hung up, here’s where she’s strung, here’s where the sky clears and the stars burn - it’s delicate, tender, gives her room to breathe rather than forcing her to run, not like she’s been broken before but like someone tried their hardest to and almost succeeded. She thinks of scars automatically. Yang’s yellow prosthetic hand stands out starkly against the white. Did. Did succeed.

But that’s not now, not anymore, and all those broken cracks are painted over gold; she lets Yang turn her gently around, pull her back against her chest, her arms wrapping around Blake’s waist. Yang’s cheek drops to her temple, smile full enough to close a crater. 

“How about now?” she murmurs softly against Blake’s ear, and Blake’s hands settle over hers. Yang’s warm, hair curling against Blake’s shoulder like the dripping sun. One day it’s a position that’ll be normal, expected; Blake’ll turn her head and Yang’ll find her mouth, and every war will be over.

“Yeah,” Blake says, watching the people she loves having fun together, held in the arms of the person she loves most of all. “I think I’m gonna make it.”


	21. first kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> challenged to me on tumblr - their first kiss in atlas.

It’s not that anything _happens,_ the way Yang always expects it to. 

She thinks of a first kiss and it’s supposed to be a _moment,_ struck gold in time. It’s supposed to be a mountain, a leap, a ladder. It’s supposed to be like clearing all the graves from a cemetery. We don’t live there anymore, she thinks. We’re new. 

In reality, it’s nothing like that, and somehow infinitely better.

What _happens_ is this:

Atlas is hard on Blake, leaves her worn and rough around the edges. Yang looks at her with too much love filling up her chest, the way a boat leaks and fills and sinks. She pours through the indents of her ribs, up her throat, drowns in it. In the end, it’s always about cracks. 

Blake starts finding her way into Yang’s arms. It’s quiet as if by accident. One night she’s tired enough to reach a breaking point and Yang’s there, sees it in the way she holds a blink a second too long, how her voice scrapes against her throat, how her body looks small as if she’s collapsing in on herself. Yang rests a hand on her shoulder but doesn’t stop, tugs her in, prosthetic fingers curling in her hair. 

“Hey,” Yang murmurs against her ear, waiting for any hint of resistance, and doesn’t find it. “It’s okay. You don’t have to be strong all the time.”  

Blake’s arms wrap around her back, sinking into her embrace, suddenly boneless and unsteady. Despite her unraveling, Yang is reminded only of the ocean, weightless beneath the sun but carrying an enormous burden in its depths. Something so beautiful it’s almost a danger to itself. 

She exhales into the crook of Yang’s neck, her breath coming out short, shaking. “Give me a minute,” she says. “I’ll be fine.” 

“I know,” Yang says softly. “Take all the time you need.”  


One minute turns into two, three. Once turns into twice, and then every night, any silent moment. “Sorry,” she always says after, like it’s something to be ashamed of. “I’m sorry.” 

They’re on the balcony off their room, and Blake’s shivering against the cold. “You don’t have to apologize,” Yang finally tells her, brushing her bangs away from her forehead. Blake meets her gaze and can’t ignore the truth. “I want to be here for you, okay? It - you make _me_ feel better, too.”  


Blake keeps her voice to herself for a moment, searching for the right words and finding no way to strip them of their sincerity, intensity. For once, the snow holds itself to the sky. “I hate this place,” she confesses, steam of her breath vanishing into the night. “I hate every second we spend here. But you - you make me feel safe.” 

“You are,” Yang says, and it’s the first time Blake realizes no amount of intimacy is going to scare her off. She’s never done this before. There are so many things she isn’t used to. “We’re safe when we’re together.”

She thinks of red-hot iron, the charring of flesh, thinks of Adam’s brand like a prophecy - and she thinks of Yang, who’d split the world like an earthquake if something took Blake away from her again. That’s the comfort of a promise, all its intricacies and connotations; _forever,_ that’s what she’d really said. _I’ll stay with you forever._  Yang touches her like she knows this. She must. She does.

Yang watches her chew on her bottom lip, a nervous habit she only defaults to during dire situations. Her eyes flick to Yang’s and down, hover somewhere around her mouth. “I know,” she says, and then: “I feel like I’m never close enough to you.”

That’s when the awareness hits her. That’s when she draws back and sees herself from the outside, sees Blake’s crossed arms, sees a little bit of spine. It’s impossible to ignore, to mistake for something else; she meets Blake’s eyes and measures the space between them in vague coordinates, like reading a map, directing a compass. It’s the intention that makes it obvious, brings the storm to its knees; when someone’s about to kiss you, she realizes, you know. You _know._

She should say something, anything - she should say _yes, please_  - she should say _oh, from the moment I met you -_ or something smooth, casual, careless. _Let’s fix that,_ maybe. _Be as close to me as you want._

“Blake,” she breathes out instead, stare hooked on Blake’s red bottom lip, and can’t say any of it.  


She’ll replay the moment Blake cracks for years to come - breaks - drowns - no, no, finds herself again, rises up on her toes, lifts her arms - how the stars shatter with her somewhere above the clouds, how the world shakes itself free from orbit and falls, how the tension suddenly crashes like the tide - she cups Yang’s face in her hands, eyelashes dusting charcoal against her cheekbones, takes pattering breaths like rain - and brushes their lips together, catches her mouth so gently it’s almost not a kiss at all, just a whisper; she holds there, waits for Yang to push her away, to pull her closer, waits, waits - and then she stops waiting - she kisses Yang again, more boldly, bravely - Yang wraps her arms around Blake’s waist, feels her eyelids fluttering, tilts her chin and slips up, captures Blake’s top lip, doesn’t even wonder if she’s doing it right because that’s the way she feels it - and Blake cuts her off short, leans away the smallest amount, opens her eyes. No, Yang thinks of saying, oh, no, I waited so long for this and I never even knew. 

 _I’m never close enough_ \- she understands now, understands closeness is not a lack of space - she wants to be something conceptual and abstract and vital, wants to be the beating of her heart, the force pushing the blood through her veins, the oxygen engulfed by her lungs.

“Yang,” she murmurs, and Yang inhales her voice. Her nails are scratching against her scalp, through her hair. Yang’s never loved a feeling more.   


“Can I,” she says, swallows, she’s so giddy and unstable, “um - you should - do that again. Do it again.”   


Blake finally smiles, lips parting in a quiet laugh, gentler than the absent night. “Yeah?” she asks, amused with an upper hand.

“Yeah.” Yang’s tongue darts out, wets her lips. She rests their foreheads together, imagines building habits like homes. Blake’s fingers settle against the back of her neck, body pressed against the length of her.   


“What’ll happen if I don’t?”   


“I’ll die,” Yang says, grin curling against the truth of it. “I’ll literally die.”  


“Oh, well, we can’t have that,” Blake says lightly, drawing her back in. There’s no mountain to climb, no ladder, no headstones crumbling to fresh grass. Blake kisses her and there’s no need for poetry - her cracks aren’t cracks at all, they’re doorways - she doesn’t drown in love, she fills and floods with it and swims. 

Blake kisses her and already Yang knows they’ll never be close enough, but that’s also how she knows it’s love.


End file.
